In Catalonia, doctors represented by Metges de Catalunya say 38 services in 19 public and private hospitals will stop voluntary overtime from June. The union says the step is part of its news coverage of the wider dispute over working conditions and is meant to press the Health Department to negotiate.
The services that have already confirmed participation are mainly anaesthesiology departments at major hospitals. They include Bellvitge, Vall d'Hebron, Sant Pau and Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, as well as Parc Taulí, Germans Trias i Pujol and Josep Trueta in Girona. The union says more services may join, including primary care centres, known as CAPs.
Xavier Lleonart, general secretary of Metges de Catalunya, said doctors have said enough because they are not willing to keep the system going through overexertion. He said some specialists work up to 3,000 hours a year when ordinary activity, on-call shifts and extra procedures are added together.
Lleonart said that is almost double the annual hours of a full-time job and warned that the situation is inhumane. The union says the overtime stoppage is intended to increase pressure for changes that would reduce workload and improve care.
The campaign is part of a wider series of protests by Metges de Catalunya. Since autumn, the union has called eleven strike days, and it says another strike day is planned for June, although the date has not yet been confirmed.