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Doctors across Spain have begun a series of strikes that could disrupt healthcare services for the next five months.

 

Six medical unions are staging weekly walkouts to protest against government reforms they say don't go far enough to protect their profession. The industrial action kicked off on Monday February 16 and will see doctors down tools for seven days each month until June, with strikes planned for mid-February, mid-March, late April, late May and mid-June.

 

Around 5,000 people marched through Madrid last Saturday calling for Minister of Health Mónica García to resign.

 

Víctor Pedrero from the Spanish Confederation of Medical Unions warned that the healthcare system risks being "dismantled and left without doctors" unless the government changes course.

 

The dispute centres on reforms to the framework statute that governs working conditions across the Spanish National Health System. In late January the Ministry of Health agreed changes with four other unions representing different healthcare staff, but doctors' groups have rejected the deal outright.

 

Medical professionals are pushing for their own separate statute independent from other health workers, along with a unique professional classification under a new A1 category. They want maximum working hours capped at 35 per week, with anything beyond that counted as voluntary overtime that must be paid. The unions are also demanding a voluntary early retirement scheme and protection against forced transfers to other locations.

 

The medical unions have apologised to patients for any disruption caused by the strikes but insist that better working conditions for doctors will ultimately lead to improved care. They've made clear they won't back down until they secure their own negotiating framework separate from the rest of the Health System workforce.

 

Image: AMYTS