Doctors willing to go to a strike: “It’s the last call for help”

At the moment, doctors have begun their pressure measures against the framework of Marco Statute convening various concentrations and a demonstration that will take place in Madrid on March 22. In a manifesto that recently signed several medical union organizations, they did not rule out going to climb those measures. The doctors are united to the text that negotiates the Ministry of Health with some unions and want to reach the end. Although the word strike is still said with a small mouth, there are more and more voices that do not rule it out. But for doctors, reaching that point is not easy, since they are aware of both the implications that this break would have for the system – and especially for patients – and the difficulties that the collective has to be able to exercise that right, with Very high minimum services.

«The strike is the last desperate tool we have when there is no other action. Nobody wants to get to that, we dislike everyone, but it is the last call for help from the medical profession in the face of the situation we are living now and is a generalized feeling, shared, ”says Álvaro Mingote, also a specialist in anesthesiology. When the time comes, the secondary, but cannot fail to mention the “great concern” that exists among the doctors for the “damage” a strike could do. «It is a desperate tool that hurts us all. To the doctor for the responsibility he has with the patient, to the system, the Ministry and the Autonomous Communities, because the waiting lists would swell more, ”he laments.

There are several points raised by the draft of the framework statute that angry doctors. Among others, they denounce that mandatory days of up to 48 hours a week are proposed, that the mandatory guards are maintained, that the hours of these are remunerated below those of ordinary day and that they do not compute for retirement, which is grouped together doctors in the same professional category as other workers with less years of training and responsibility or that an exclusivity is established by which the service chiefs will not be able to work at the same time in the public and the private or for which specialists cannot do so during the first five years of dedication to the public health system.

“It’s inhuman”

«The only health profession with 24 -hour guards are doctors. The rest of the professionals work in shifts of 7, 8 or at most 12 hours. We only ask to be human again and be able to reconcile personal life with working life. It is inhuman to work 24 hours, ”says Mingote.

Medicine professionals also feel that they are not sufficiently represented at the negotiating table of that standard, in which UGT, CCOO, CSIF, CIG-SAUDE and FSES participate. In the latter, CESM is included, the State Confederation of Medical Unions, the only voice that the doctors have in that negotiation, so the feeling is growing between the collective that it does not watch enough for their working conditions. Hence, they claim their own statute negotiated by doctors, a proposal that the Ministry of Health rejects. «People are being confused with which we want their own statute because we are privileged. And it is not so, ”says Arnau Castañer, gynecologist in a hospital in Elche (Alicante). He defends that what they claim is to have the same conditions as the rest of the professionals who work in health, such as the limits of day or shifts so as not to have to work 24 hours in a row. «They put some abusive minimums. The most serious and harmful thing that this framework has is that it goes against doctors and all patients, because if there are no doctors and if there are also those who are not as rested as the rest of the workers, logically they will Attend worse, ”he says, reasons why he would not hesitate to join a strike, even aware of the obstacles that would be able to do it.

To be able to exercise in public health, Juan Pablo Caballero stands out, a urologist at the General Hospital of Alicante, a doctor needs at least 11 or 12 years of training: the 6 of the university career, the preparation of the MIR exam and the 4 or 5 years of specialty. «It is not about saying that doctors are more than anyone or getting over anyone, but just as nurses do not like a person with 2 years of training to be at their same remuneration and hierarchical level, we have we have studied at least 11 years to work we don’t want to be below hierarchically. We don’t want anyone to charge less, but we want it to be recognized, ”he says.

This doctor would also be willing to reach a strike to defend their rights. “Moreover, I am looking forward to,” he says, although he also refers to the “feeling of guilt” that exists between the group for having to make that decision, as well as the “feeling that nothing will work” for the minimum services that They are imposed. Even so, he celebrates, in the 20 years that he has been working in Health, I had never seen a union of the collective like the one that currently exists. «It is the opportunity we have to claim everything that we have left to take us away and we all agree that it is already well. The Framework Statute has been the trigger, it has been the wick that has ignited everything, but the discomfort comes from a long time back, ”he says.

More Cauto is shown César Cinesi, head of the Emergency Department section of the Reina Sofía de Murcia University General Hospital, which does think it is necessary to make “pressures” to achieve a change in the text that is negotiated. «You have to try to hurry all negotiations. For the medical group, talking about strike is complicated and controversial, especially for patient care and for me they are major words. But it is true that this change of statute marks seriously violates our group. If the ministry does not reason, should we reach that pressure? It is an issue that we should raise the entire group, ”he reflects.

Pedagogy with patients

After the Covid-19 Pandemia, this is the situation that has caused the most “nerves and concern” to doctors in recent years, says Cristina Fernández Carballido, a rheumatologist at the San Juan University Hospital in Alicante. He regrets that the group feels that it is not being heard and that society “is not aware that we have bad working conditions and economic conditions well below the standards of any European country.” Therefore, and although he wants to be prudent when talking about a hypothetical strike, he trusts the “wiseness” of the Ministry of Health to listen to his requests, which are, in his opinion, “sensible and reasonable.” “But if everything finally fails and a strike is called, I would be willing to go,” he says. And to get to that point, José Ramón Aruso says, also Alicante’s traumatologist, “pedagogy” should be made with patients. «It is very important to convey that it is not against them, that like the employees of other sectors we also want to have life. We just want to have the same conditions that other partners have. And if we cannot have the same because we are something special, then we will logically have to have our own statute, ”

Also the exclusivity that is proposed will cause talent escape to both private health and other countries, Javier García predicts. This anesthesiologist, as head of service, exerts exclusively in public health, so the measure would not affect him. But he will, he says, to the system. “They have gone to attack one of the two great important things that are still in the public system: the doctors who are giving the greatest excellence.” The quality of the health system, Garcia insists, depends on the docks he has, and if the best is forbidden to combine their work, they will go to the private one. “If someone asks me who has done this framework statute, I would not say that a political party that fills their mouths with defending public health, who must be enjoying it are the largest ‘lobbies’ and private health companies,” says .