Tens of thousands of reasons took to the streets of Madrid this Sunday to defend the public health system. Juan, who came from Usera with his family, spoke out in favor of “stopping the deterioration of a system that was exemplary but is deteriorating day by day”. Yolanda, holding one hand with her boyfriend and holding a banner against the cuts in the other, walks down Recoletos Street “to stop a script that we’ve already seen in other public services like education.” Horcasitas officials Jacinto and Amparo are calling for “a healthcare system that includes those of us who can’t pay for private insurance,” and Rosa, who is from La Cabrera with three other neighbors, is protesting to keep the mountain ambulances from closing .
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One by one, thousands of people packed the center of Madrid with shouts, banners, T-shirts, drums and kettledrums. According to the government delegation, more than 250,000 people took part in the demonstration. Thousands of Madrid residents have responded to the pulse that health workers are keeping with the authorities with one of the largest mobilizations in recent years, after taking more than 200,000 people onto the streets for the second time in less than three months. In a moment of ecstasy, march organizers used the word “million” to quantify the size of the protest. At that time, four columns came to Cibeles from the Alcalá Gate, Gran Vía, Atocha or Colón Square.
From the same lectern you can hear sentences like “they want to privatize the health care system and it will eventually become a welfare system” or “we need a health care system that tackles the causes and not the symptoms”. As the organizers narrated the health fight from the podium, the same speaker reproached: “Can you believe that the Minister of Health [Enrique] Ruiz Escudero did not want to be present at any of the previous meetings?
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Under the motto “Madrid rises up and demands public health and solutions to the basic care plan”, the march was called by residents of Madrid’s neighborhoods and cities and supported by the Association for the Defense of Public Health, which calls for an increase in health spending to stem its deterioration. “Successive PP governments have opted for defunding and privatization of the public health system, and deliberately made it worse,” they said in the previous days.
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For the federation, the situation in primary care is particularly dramatic since Madrid is the Autonomous Community with the lowest per capita expenditure and the lowest percentage of health expenditure for this first level of care, denounce the conveners. According to them, up to 26.72% of people with health problems did not have access to consultations.
The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, has confirmed his defense of “dignified, quality and universal” public health against the “People’s Party model, which is the one who can be cured”. In the presentation of Málaga’s socialist candidate for mayor, Daniel Pérez, Sánchez urged “not to forget the importance” of “free, universal and quality” public healthcare in Spain, especially after the “complex” moments of the pandemic.
Since November 21, 4,240 primary care physicians and 720 pediatricians have been on strike. Among other things, doctors are demanding revolutionary things from Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s government, such as 10 minutes to see a patient.
Negotiations between the parties are faltering and the projects promoted by the Ministry of Health to reduce working hours in the health centers arouse more doubts than certainties in the strike committee. Also with them are more than 200 doctors from the former Primary Care Emergency Services (SUAP) and Rural Care Services (SAR) and Summa 112 affected by the reorganization of the out-of-hospital emergency care model, on the warpath and doing their work breaks on different days, to claim full teams in all centers, as was the case in the pre-pandemic model.
Aside from the numerical importance on the streets, this Sunday’s demonstration is the last show of strength by an exhausted group on the streets and in the clinic after nearly three months of mobilization. GPs have not been paid for more than 10 weeks while the pace of consultations is hectic. Before them, Díaz Ayuso considers that it is a political and unjustified protest against “professional assumptions that are 42, 50 or 60 of the more than 90,000 health professionals that the Community of Madrid has (… ) and they think it’s theirs,” he said recently at the congregation.
An example of the polarization and distance of positions between the parties was witnessed on Saturday night during the Goya Awards Gala. Filmmaker Carlos Saura’s widow, Eulalia Ramón, thanked the health workers at Villalba Hospital for the treatment received while sending a message to the authorities. “Public health deserves that we take care of it in the same way that employees take care of us. To whom it suits, it does,” he said to applause from the cinema world.
Just a few minutes later, Ayuso grabbed the glove via social media and made an antagonistically different interpretation of what was happening: “I thank Carlos Saura’s widow for the homage she paid to the healthcare system in Madrid, embodied tonight at the Villalba Hospital. We all believe in our health, we work for the best”. Well, another Goya for the film Don’t Yell at Me Because I Can’t See You.
I thank Carlos Saura’s widow, Eulalia Ramón, for the homage she paid to Madrid’s healthcare system, embodied tonight at the Villalba Hospital.
We all believe in our health, we work for the best.
— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) February 11, 2023
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