Patients arriving at the Emergency Department of the Eivissa hospital Can Misses are fully facing the shortage of healthcare professionals, a situation that public healthcare in the Islands has been dragging on and for which no solution is found. The Pitiusan health center lacks doctors with the MIR (a training system that doctors undertake in Spain after finishing their degree to specialize), a situation that does not violate legality, but which does hinder the daily functioning of the center, as socialist deputy Irantzu Fernández denounced this Tuesday in the Parliament session. The usual practice is for professionals attending Emergencies to have completed the MIR and to have a specialization in family medicine – in 2030, the first cohort of doctors specializing in Emergencies will graduate.

The Association for the Defense of Public Healthcare in the Balearic Islands (ADSPIB) warned on Wednesday that the doctors' strikes in the Islands against the draft of the new Framework Statute do not address the need for a reorganization of the healthcare system in the Balearic Islands. At a press conference at the Official College of Nurses of the Balearic Islands (COIBA), the organization's president, Joan de Pedro, indicated that the management of healthcare services and issues such as working hours and salaries are the responsibility of the regional government. In this regard, he argued that the Framework Statute is "a step in the right direction" and warned that "refusing it is tantamount to allowing delays and problems that affect people's rights to continue accumulating." According to De Pedro, transforming the system requires improving working conditions, reorganizing doctors' schedules to allow them to cover more hours without jeopardizing their labor rights, and committing to full-time dedication to public healthcare.

This Saturday at noon, weather permitting, Palma's Plaça d'Espanya will host a rally in defense of public healthcare and against privatization, jointly organized by the UGT and CCOO unions and the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Healthcare. The three organizations are calling on citizens to mobilize "in the face of the growing privatization and deterioration of the Balearic healthcare system," which they assert is jeopardizing the universality and quality of care. According to family physician José Manuel Aranda, a member of the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Healthcare, the Balearic Islands are currently the third autonomous community with the highest degree of healthcare privatization, only behind the Canary Islands and Madrid. Aranda warns that "9.1% of the Health Department's budget is allocated to agreements with private providers, while only 12.1% reaches primary care," a figure he considers "a clear example of the imbalance of a model that transfers public funds to private businesses while stifling the foundation of the system."

The Balearic Islands Citizens' Platform for Public Healthcare warned this Thursday that the situation of public healthcare is "critical" and that the system "risks resembling the United States model," where "if you have money, you get treatment, and if not, you don't." "The long-term objective seems to be to turn Spain into the United States. We could end up like them. That is, those who have money can receive care, and those who don't, can't," denounced Antonio Picazo, a member of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Palma, who added that the platform will fight to ensure that public healthcare "is not reduced to mere band-aids."