Doctors' strike: hospitals and health centers will operate with minimum services from March 16 to 20

PalmHospitals and health centers in the Balearic Islands will provide minimum services equivalent to those established on public holidays from March 16 to 20, during the second week of the strike called by medical staff in protest against the reform of the Framework Statute. As reported this Friday by the Ministry of Health, the minimum services will be in effect from 00:00 on Monday the 16th until 23:59 on Friday the 20th and will be the same as on public holidays. In hospital care, services that do not operate on public holidays will guarantee the presence of a doctor on the morning shift. In central services, activity will be ensured with 30% of the usual staff, except in radiophysics, with 50% coverage, and in hematology and hemotherapy, also with 50% of the staff.

In medical specialties with inpatients and services attending to hospitalized patients, one specialist per service will be added to the morning shift, except for anesthesiology, where two specialists will be added. Urgent or critical hospital services such as oncology, medical hematology and radiotherapy, oncological surgery, emergency department, dialysis, day hospital, and hospital pharmacy will operate normally. The minimum on-call service will also be guaranteed with the same number of personnel as usual.

Primary Care

In primary care, each health center will have one doctor and one pediatrician on the morning shift, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Centers with more than 20,500 registered patients will have two doctors and one pediatrician. On the afternoon shift, from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., the presence of one doctor and one pediatrician, if available, will be guaranteed. During the continuous care shifts (PAC), from 3:00 p.m. to 11:59 p.m., all doctors and pediatricians providing this service must be present. Emergency services, such as SUAP and 061, will maintain full coverage without disruption due to the strike. The doctors' strike next week is the second of five planned by the Committee through June. The first protest already took place on the same dates in February, and the following ones are scheduled for April 27-30, May 18-22, and June 15-19. The Spanish Confederation of Medical Unions confirmed demonstrations throughout the week in Aragon, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Valencian Community, Murcia, Extremadura, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia, and Galicia.