More than 300 doctors gathered on May 20 in Sant Jaume square, in Barcelona, during the eleventh day of strike called in Catalonia to demand a specific collective agreement, an end to 24-hour on-call shifts, and labor improvements.
The protest arrived with an evident gap between the follow-up figures. While Metges de Catalunya placed the strike at 30%, the Departament de Salut lowered the provisional figure to 5.3% in the morning and 3.5% in the afternoon in SISCAT centers.
Metges de Catalunya estimated the follow-up at 36% in Barcelona and 17% in Lleida
The union broke down its territorial estimate with 36% follow-up in the Barcelona demarcation, 20% in Girona, 24% in Tarragona, and 17% in Lleida. By care areas, it calculated 32% in primary care and 22% in the hospital setting.
During the concentration in Sant Jaume, the organization recreated a parliamentary session to question the president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Salvador Illa. The action sought to demand that he assume his responsibility in the absence of the Minister of Health, Olga Pané.
In addition, the union launched the campaign "Not one more minute" urges limiting activity to the mandatory workday. The initiative asks physicians to only perform ordinary activity and suspend additional and voluntary activity.
Bellvitge will lose the extra activity of 59 anesthesiologists from June
The union's warning took concrete form at Bellvitge Hospital. Fifty-nine specialists in anesthesiology and resuscitation announced that from June they will stop performing activity outside of ordinary working hours.
That move affects one of the points the protest sought to highlight in Barcelona, the system's dependence on hours and tasks assumed outside of regular hours, as already happened with the deficit of doctors in primary care.
"If this becomes widespread, we will see in a few days how waiting lists will multiply" - Xavier Lleonart, general secretary, Metges de Catalunya
The May 20 concentration was the eleventh day of strike and once again placed 24-hour on-call shifts and the lack of a specific collective agreement at the center of the conflict. In this context, union pressure is also supported by non-collaboration measures with voluntary activity, a debate linked to the pressure of waiting lists.
Xavier Lleonart, general secretary of Metges de Catalunya, issued that warning from Sant Jaume square after 59 anesthesiologists and resuscitators from Bellvitge Hospital communicated that they will stop doing activity outside of ordinary working hours starting in June.