Doctors across Catalonia are stopping voluntary extra shifts from 1 June, a move that could push up public healthcare waiting lists. The action affects specialist services in several hospitals and comes as around 200,000 people in Catalonia are already waiting for surgery in the public system.
The mobilisation is being led by Metges de Catalunya, which says doctors have exhausted dialogue with the Department of Health. Irene Bermell, an anaesthetist at Bellvitge Hospital and deputy general secretary of the union, said the decision is not aimed at patients or hospital managers, but at getting the department to recognise the problem.
At Bellvitge Hospital in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, the anaesthesiology and resuscitation service was the first to tell hospital management and the department that it would stop all activity beyond ordinary and mandatory hours, known as peonadas. About 80% of the 90 doctors in the service backed the move. Anaesthetists at the Sant Joan de Déu health park in Sant Boi joined the Not One Minute More campaign last Thursday.
Francisco Castro, an emergency doctor at Sant Joan de Déu, said much of the work that keeps the system running is done outside normal hours. He said voluntary extra shifts can mean surgeons and anaesthetists work on free afternoons or mornings to try to keep waiting lists down, but added that Catalonia still has the second longest list in Spain by patient numbers. He also said doctors in some services can end up working between 60 and 70 hours a week.
Support for the stoppage is spreading. According to Metges de Catalunya, statements renouncing extra and extraordinary activity have also been signed at Moisés Broggi Hospital in Sant Joan Despí, Consorci Sanitari Integral, Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital, Hospital del Mar, Sant Pau, General de Granollers, Universitari d’Igualada and Hospital de Terrassa. The union says doctors at Vall d’Hebron, Parc Taulí and Viladecans are also due to submit their documents soon.
The doctors point to an agreement signed on 7 May in Galicia between the regional government and a strike committee, which included commitments on working hours, pay and conditions. Their statement says Catalan doctors are no better or worse than Galician doctors, and calls for fair pay and dignified conditions. For readers following the wider health policy debate in Catalonia, see our news coverage.