If you have a hospital appointment in the Canaries in the second half of October, keep an eye on your phone. On Wednesday the two largest doctors’ unions in the islands, the Sindicato Médico (CESM) and the Sindicato de Empleados Médicos de Canarias (SEMCA), called an open-ended strike in the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) from 16 October. No end date has been set.
According to CESM Canarias president Eric Álvarez, 8,000 doctors are covered by the call, including junior doctors in training, and 80% of them support it. Those are the unions’ figures. Earlier this year the unions and the regional health department gave very different turnout figures for the same strikes: in April the department put participation at 13.7%, while the organisers claimed 59%.
The background matters. A week ago UGT signed a preliminary agreement with the regional health department and, as far as it is concerned, the dispute is over. CESM and SEMCA reject that deal. “UGT signed underhandedly and does not represent doctors,” SEMCA’s Cristina Escort told reporters. On the same day, Spain’s national doctors’ unions postponed their own strike over the new staff statute until after the general election. The Canarian unions say their dispute is separate.
At the heart of it are 18 demands that, according to CESM and SEMCA, the department has not properly addressed. They describe its offers as “limited and partial progress, still insufficient to solve a structural problem”. The demands fall under three headings. The first is representation: doctors want their own seat at the table and their own statute. The second is working time: on-call shifts, rest periods, workloads and appointment schedules. The third is pay, which they want brought in line with their qualifications and with what doctors earn elsewhere in the European Economic Area.
The list also includes a new system for exemption from night and weekend shifts, specific measures for doctors over 60 and a plan to keep newly qualified specialists in the islands. It asks for permanent contracts, publicly funded liability insurance, an always-open transfer process and protection for doctors in specialist training. The unions also accuse the SCS of trying to impose a new way of organising work without proper negotiation, and without recognising how different one health centre can be from another.
Álvarez says the unions are still willing to talk before 16 October. To call off the strike, though, they want “concrete, verifiable commitments and a realistic timetable”. If those don’t come, they threaten to stop teaching, research and training work as well.
For patients, the key unknown is minimum services, which had not been published at the time of writing. The unions called the minimum services in earlier strikes this year excessive. Until the official ruling is out, watch for messages from the SCS about scheduled appointments and operations, and call your health centre if in doubt. Emergency care, as in any public health strike, is covered by minimum services.
