Doctors’ strike: minister accepts protest case

Doctors’ unions have called a strike for mid-October, and Health Minister Mónica García says their protest has legitimate grounds. Speaking in Madrid on 11 September, she said she had tried throughout to prevent the walkout.

García pointed to the framework statute, the proposed law covering health-service staff that is already before the Congress of Deputies. Parliament must now approve it, reject it or amend it, she said.

The minister said a separate law for doctors and specialists could be considered, as the strike committee wants. But she said it must not come at the expense of better working conditions for other health workers.

García warned that the framework statute cannot settle every complaint raised by doctors. It should not decide how a hospital emergency department is run or planned, she said, because regional governments hold powers over planning, organisation and staffing.

She said different demands had to be taken to the authority responsible, noting that strike-calling unions and regional administrations had already reached several agreements.

Asked whether she would join the strike, García gave no direct answer. Speaking as a doctor, she said she would seek the return of the 200 euros a month that the Community of Madrid had, she said, taken from her on-call pay since 2012.

Topics: Strikes · Jobs & labour · Health · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com