Spanish health workers protest in Madrid over cutbacks to public healthcare services

By Senhan Bolelli

MADRID (AA) - Several thousand health workers held a demonstration Sunday in Spain’s capital over cutbacks and privatization affecting Madrid’s public healthcare services.

Chanting slogans and carrying signs saying “S.O.S. Public Healthcare” and “Stop Privatization,” they gathered in front of the Ministry of Health building and marched in the city center.

The protesters criticized the cutbacks by the regional government headed by Isabel Ayuso, the leader of the conservative Popular Party, which have led to a lack of resources and sufficient staff at public hospitals, forcing people to turn to emergency departments, which are overwhelmed.

In a statement, unions to which the health workers are affiliated requested an increase of investments in the health sector so that public hospitals can provide quality and universal service with 100% state support.

Family physicians and first responders who took a break during the Christmas period from an indefinite strike they began on Nov. 21 for such things as higher pay and better working conditions were not met by representatives of the regional government and decided to continue their strike at the beginning of the week.

"There is a need to defend public health services, especially in this period, because Spain is one of the leading countries in healthcare in Europe, and it is losing it,” one of the demonstrators, Concha Jimenez, told Anadolu.

"It is necessary to defend this system, which was created with great efforts, not to (let it) die," Jimenez added.

- Strikes to spread across country in coming weeks

The strikes in Madrid are set to spread to other parts of the country including Catalonia, Valencia, Extremadura, Andalusia, Navarre and Aragon for similar reasons.

Health workers’ unions in most of the autonomous administrations in the country announced that they would go on strike on different dates.

Meanwhile, due to the increase in strikes and respiratory diseases, emergency and first response units at many of Spain's hospitals are overcrowded.

In some hospitals, patients wait in the corridors for three to four days to be admitted to a ward.