Doctors call for an indefinite strike starting October 28th throughout the State

PalmaThe Medical Strike Committee announced this Friday an indefinite nationwide strike starting on October 28th to protest against the Framework Statute bill and demand specific regulations for doctors and medical professionals. The mobilization has been agreed upon by the main medical trade union organizations and also has the support of the Medical and Professional Union (UMYF). The call comes ten days after the Council of Ministers approved the bill that is to replace the regulations in force since 2003, which is now continuing its parliamentary processing in the Congress of Deputies.

The organizations that make up the Strike Committee —the Spanish Confederation of Medical Unions (CESM), the Andalusian Medical Union (SMA), Doctors of Catalonia (MC), the Association of Doctors and Higher Graduates of Madrid (AMYTS), the Basque Medical Union (SME) and the Independent Galician Doctors' Union (O’MEGA)— consider that the Ministry of Health has not met their demands after months of mobilizations and negotiations.

The unions maintain that the project keeps doctors within a common statute with the rest of the healthcare professionals and demand their own regulation that takes into account their training, responsibility, and working conditions. The general secretary of AMYTS, Ángela Hernández, has described the call as a "failure for everyone," but has defended that the protest is also carried out in defense of the patients. "We do not want to continue witnessing how care is progressively degrading," she stated. Hernández has demanded that, if a joint Framework Statute is finally maintained, doctors should have conditions comparable to those of the rest of the healthcare categories. The unions especially reject, as she explained, a workday that they consider discriminatory and a professional classification that, in their view, worsens their conditions.

35 hours and reform of on-call duties

Among the main demands of the collective are the establishment of a 35-hour work week, the recognition and compensation of overtime, and a reform of the on-call system that guarantees its voluntary nature. They also demand a professional classification that adjusts to the level of training and responsibility of doctors and medical staff, as well as changes to the retirement model. The indefinite strike is in addition to the work stoppages that doctors already carried out during the first half of the year, when the mobilizations were concentrated in one week of each month between February and June. The CESM has indicated that it is still pending to specify the calendar for the rest of the protest actions. The unions have called on doctors and medical staff across the country to maintain unity of action and support the stoppages, which they consider decisive for the future of the profession.