Professionals from the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa called for a work stoppage this Wednesday in front of the center with whistles and the reading of a manifesto under the slogan "it's time to make ourselves heard." The staff demands changes in working conditions and internal organization after years of negotiations without agreement with management.
The protest places the conflict in a paradox that the workers clearly summarize. While they ask to be able to continue their careers in Terrassa, they denounce that the lack of staff, beds, and the saturation in emergencies and primary care forces them to take on more patients, attend in hallways, and see patients in just five minutes.
The staff reported that absences force them to double patients
Neus Muñoz, president of the CST works council, focused on one of the main complaints: work-life balance. During the mobilization, she argued that staff need to be able to manage their free time without vacation cancellations and with more predictable shift planning.
"Above all, we focus on family reconciliation, being able to manage our free time as we wish, without our vacations being canceled" - Neus Muñoz, president of the works council of the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa
The discontent goes beyond schedules. The staff denounces a lack of human and physical resources, a shortage of beds, and constant care pressure in emergencies and primary care, a situation that had already surfaced in the saturation of emergency services in the Catalan healthcare network.
When a colleague is absent, professionals say the rest must take on the pending work. Joan Sánchez, a consortium nurse and UGT delegate, summarized this difficulty by explaining that they work from Monday to Sunday and that coinciding with family on days off is almost impossible.
Muñoz added that it is increasingly common to attend to patients in hallways and limit visits to five minutes. In her opinion, that pace eventually takes its toll on the workers as well, because the professional ends up getting sick.
The committee submitted a document with 50 measures and management responded with meetings
The workers presented management with a document containing 50 points. The text calls for improvements in shift planning, advance confirmation of vacations, and a specific distribution of annual leave with 23 working days for morning and afternoon shifts and 16 for night shifts.
The document also incorporates economic claims, more stability, and professional development. It also proposes that the energy savings derived from the installation of photovoltaic panels be allocated to labor improvements and that the center review its structural expenses.
"We do not want to leave here, on the contrary; we want to build a career and retain talent, and to do so, we need to feel valued" - Neus Muñoz, president of the works council of the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa
The management of the Consorci Sanitari de Terrassa responded by attaching a schedule of meetings to negotiate all the demands. Sánchez lowered expectations because, as he explained, both parties have been meeting for three years without progress, and in his experience, management's response has been negative.
For now, Muñoz warned that the protest will continue as long as a satisfactory response from the staff is not received. In the document handed over to management, the workers set 23 working days of vacation for morning and afternoon shifts and 16 for night shifts as one of the concrete measures for negotiation.