A group of workers gathered this Thursday at 8:00 a.m. at the outpatient entrance of the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital, on the occasion of the strike of the Canary Islands Health Service. Healthcare and non-healthcare workers have given a manifesto to users, explaining the reasons why staff have decided to support this strike.
At 11:30 a.m., this group of people will move to the main entrance of the Hospital, where the most important gathering of the day will take place. For the moment, the unions have not made any assessment of the participation in the strike.
The general secretary of the Federation of Public Services of UGT, Juan Carlos López, has pointed out that the first objective "is to inform the users" and, later, "the participation will be analyzed". "We have to take into account that the strike day is 24 hours and, therefore, ends at 8:00 a.m. on Friday," he said.
López also indicated that minimum services are being covered in all health centers. "Healthcare is a service that is always under minimums. We have to take into account that the minimum services involve almost 70 percent of the staff, so the impact of the strike day is not very effective."
From UGT they have assured that all the minimum services will be fulfilled on the day of the strike because "society already suffers enough, so that its health provision is reduced on top of that." "We are precisely protesting so that the health provision of users is not further reduced. It is the true purpose of the strike, to prevent the Public Service from degenerating further," said Juan Carlos López.
The workers of the Canary Islands Health Service have decided to call this strike to protest against the cuts in healthcare that, according to them, the Government of the Canary Islands plans to make in the 2012 budgets, as well as the extension of working hours.
