A score of doctors joined this Thursday in Girona the teachers' strike demonstration to make visible the collective's discomfort and claim that they share part of their demands with the teachers. The concentration started in the Fontajau car park, where they coincided with teachers and farmers before joining the march, accompanied by tractors, and later participate in the speeches before the Generalitat headquarters.
Joint protest in Fontajau and march to the Generalitat
Some healthcare professionals chose to stay in Girona to make common cause with the teachers, instead of moving to Barcelona, where the mobilizations of previous days had been concentrated. Representatives from Josep Trueta hospital, from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and from regional centers such as Palamós hospital participated in the protest.
The territorial president of Metges de Catalunya in Girona and union delegate at Josep Trueta hospital, Isabel Castrillo, defended the presence of the collective in the mobilization and stressed that the complaints are shared. "We think we have several things in common. The Government does not listen to us, it does not want to sit down with us to talk", she pointed out.
Castrillo denounced that agreements have been signed that, in the union's opinion, do not represent doctors and affect their working conditions without direct negotiation with the collective. He also insisted on the demand for an own medical agreement given the Government's intention to approve a framework statute for all workers.
"We have our profession, our training, and our way of working" - Isabel Castrillo, Metges de Catalunya
Unequal follow-up of the medical strike
The strike of medical professionals called by Metges de Catalunya had a turnout of 25% in the regions of Girona, according to the union's data. Girona was the second demarcation with the most incidence, only behind Barcelona, where the strike reached 32%.
Always according to union figures, the turnout was 23% in Tarragona, 22% in Lleida and 31% in Catalonia as a whole. By care areas, the strike reached 39% in primary care and 26% in hospital care.
The Department of Health lowered that incidence and placed the follow-up at a 5.3% during the morning in the SISCAT centers.
Rejection of the labor model and new strike days
Among the points rejected by the union are a mandatory 45-hour work week and the maintenance of 24-hour shifts. Castrillo maintained that this model does not fit with the new generations, who do not accept it because they consider it unnatural and contrary to work-life balance.
"I would not like a surgeon to operate on me after working for twenty hours" - Isabel Castrillo, Metges de Catalunya
The union representative also denounced work overload, lack of funding, and a very bureaucratized system that, she stated, does not respond to the reality of the medical profession nor to that of other groups that are mobilizing these days. Furthermore, she criticized that medical professionals are trapped between administrations, because from the Generalitat they are referred to Madrid and from Madrid they are told that the competence belongs to the Govern.
This Friday another day of strike has been called in Catalonia. At a state level, the strike is planned throughout the week and the mobilizations could be repeated weekly in the coming months. Castrillo warned that the collective will maintain the pressure until there is a direct negotiation. "No one ends up sitting down to talk with us", he lamented.