Los médicos irán a la huelga indefinida en todo el país desde el 28 de octubre

Medical professionals across Spain have announced indefinite strikes starting October 28th to protest against the proposed Statute of Framework proposed by the Minister of Health, Mónica García. The Confederación Española de Sindicatos Médicos (CESM), the Andalusian Medical Union (SMA), Metges de Catalunya (MC), the Association of Doctors and Superior Apprentices of Madrid (AMYTS), the Basque Medical and Optional Union (SME), and the Independent Optional Medical Union of Galicia (O MEGA) have all agreed to this decision.

This move is in response to the 10-day delay in the approval of the proposed law by the Council of Ministers, which aims to reform the regulations since 2003 and is currently under debate in the Congress of Deputies. The Comité de Huelga de Médicos criticizes the Ministry of Health's persistence in pushing forward with a Statute of Framework, which faces rejection from doctors and optional professionals, disregarding months of strikes, protests, and repeated attempts to negotiate a real agreement.

Amyts Secretary General Angela Hernández states that initiating this indefinite strike is a failure of everyone, but they want to convey to patients that they are doing this as patients. They do not want to continue witnessing the gradual deterioration of care. Hernández explains that the goal of the strikes is to have doctors and optional professionals have the same conditions as other professional categories in healthcare if the joint Statute is maintained.

She warns that the statute negotiated by generalist unions and the professional nurses' union, in which doctors continue to face a discriminatory schedule and an improving classification of their conditions, is not acceptable. If doctors and optional professionals' performance must remain exceptional and extraordinary, they want these conditions to be negotiated with medical and optional unions as their interlocutors, through a specific medical and optional statute.

The ease of understanding this is that each level has its own responsibility. The Ministry of Health sets the framework, and the communities develop it. The complex National Health System has been burdened by the overload and discontent of doctors and optional professionals, which cannot continue, she emphasizes. The concrete demands of medical and optional unions include establishing a 35-hour workweek, recognizing and compensating for overtime, reforming the entire on-call system to ensure voluntary service, a professional classification appropriate to training and responsibility, and changes in the retirement model.

These new mobilizations, which will be indefinite, join the strikes held in the first half of the year, which were limited to one week per month between February and June. The Confederación Española de Sindicatos Médicos informs that they are awaiting the closure of the calendar for the remaining actions to be carried out. They call on all doctors and optional professionals to maintain unity of action and support this call, at a moment considered decisive for the future of the profession in Spain.