Catalan doctors go on strike after failure to resolve conflict with Salut

Three days of long negotiations were not enough for the Catalan doctors will reach a OK with employers’ associations and the Conselleria de Salut. There will be strike at least on January 25 and 26, and will be joined by the primary school teachers’ strike. public school, as well as with others that are more in the minority also in the field of health, such as that of nurses. About 25,000 doctors of the public health of Catalonia, both primary care centers (CAP) and hospitals, are called upon to mobilize. This is the second major strike of the Catalan public health system in the last four years, since in 2018 the Catalan public health system had already stopped the… primary care physicians.After this strike, CAP doctors managed to set a maximum number of visits per day. (28) and an average duration for each patient (12 minutes). And now, according to Metges de Catalunya (MC), the union that called the strike, and Salut, one of the members of the European Commission’s intervention team, the strike is not over. main stumbling blocks in the negotiation is, once again, the the practitioner’s agenda: the union chooses to set a the number of visits per day, while the ministry advocates the “self-organization” of the doctor. This example illustrates how, in some respects, the situation has changed little over the past four years. On the other hand, the “conselleria” accuses the union of having a “red line” in terms of remuneration and not care: Doctors, according to Salut, ask the direct award of a wage supplement in the payslips, something who must first go through a negotiation table.

It remains to be seen whether Metges de Catalunya will also stop the days February 1, 2 and 3, as promised, or she comes to an agreement sooner, which, although not yet reached, is also not very far from being formalized, as recognized by the union itself in recent days during negotiations. The union and Salut will meet again on Friday at 3:30 p.m. to continue negotiations. For now, MC has summoned the doctors at 10 a.m. on Wednesday in front of Ministry of Health (Travessera de Les Corts, 131) and plan to take Gran Via de Carles III and Rambla de Brasil until they reach City Hall. Sants train station, to “illustrate the exodus of professionals”.

“We confirm that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow there will be a strike. The fundamental reasons can be summarized in two: one is the work overload and another, the working conditions, who do not retain medical talent,” explained the general secretary of the union, Xavier Lléonart, after seven o’clock in the evening, at the Conselleria de Salut, where the journalists had been waiting for hours.

Closer, but not close enough

According to Lleonart, the ” work overload “. makes it difficult for the doctor to give a good quality of care and leads many practitioners to find themselves in a situation of leave the profession or the public system or suffering from burnout. “If it is true that nowadays we got closer, we did not obtain a proposal from the “conselleria” which is sufficiently transversal and homogeneous enough to cancel it, ”said the general secretary of the MC.

The syndicate calls for “concreteness as “limit diaries”. of doctors. Salut advocates more self-organization of the doctor. ” [Poner límites a las agendas] would generate more waiting lists, but it would give more comfort to colleagues and people would be better served, Lleonart defended. “We were offered a plan that is not concrete and which is awaiting, among other things, the approval of the European Commission. Budgets. These are proposals that are good for the medium and long term, but that does not demobilize [una huelga] “, he concluded.

The media intervention of Mr. Lleonart was followed by that of the deputy director of the Health Service of Catalonia (CatSalut), Alfredo Garcia, who ensured that The union’s “red line” is “retributive” and not social. “She asks for the direct attribution, by Hi, of an additional remuneration in the payslips. We cannot accept it because it goes against the norm. This must be channeled through the trading desks and it was the red line that broke the negotiation,” said García, who claimed that the breakdown of the negotiation came as a “surprise” to everyone, because “the dynamics of the negotiation were good”.In addition, the “conselleria” offered a work table. to address the availability of professionals in the system, the availability of medical and specialist positions, training, agendas, stabilization of professional positions and accessibility issues. “We were pretty much in agreement and we set a timetable,” said the assistant director of CatSalut.

Finally, the nurses were those who began the week of mobilizations on Tuesday of the public health system: some thousand demonstrated today in Barcelona and marched along Via Laietana to Parliament to demand better working conditions. However, this strike, which the majority nurses union, Satse, did not join, had an impact on the lives of nurses. next residual.