The medical strike cancels 45,000 appointments in the Canary Islands and reschedules more than a thousand surgeries

The director of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS), Adasat Goya, has quantified this Thursday at 45,000 the appointments canceled due to the doctors' strike, which has also forced the rescheduling or cancellation of 1,200 surgical procedures and has generated a direct cost of 200 million.

To the 6,000 euros per day, we must add the indirect costs caused by the 25 days of strike supported in the Canary Islands, such as workdays that have not been carried out, patient transfers, or the prolongation of hospital stays, he stated before participating in the inauguration of the fifteenth Congress of the Spanish Society of Electromedicine and Clinical Engineering (SEEIC).

"We are sure that the cost already exceeds two hundred million and, in terms of healthcare, as of March we already knew that there were more than 45,000 canceled appointments, more than 1,200 rescheduled or canceled surgical procedures, and more than 1,000 diagnostic tests affected," he detailed.

Goya stressed that the healthcare impact of this strike "is truly worrying and is having an immediate repercussion on waiting lists."

Therefore, he announced that the SCS will propose "a solution to the medical union," the promoter of the strike in the Canary Islands, whose regional administration, he said, has acted as an intermediary with the Ministry of Health "to try to reach an agreement."

"This strike is a consequence of the Ministry's inability to solve a problem with the medical collective, and we plan to send our proposal to the medical union, between this week and next, with the specific conditions of the autonomous community that they have" requested, with the aim of allowing "an end to the conflict" at the regional level, he asserted.

The salary and remuneration improvements proposed by the SCS

The proposal that the SCS will present to the medical union addresses "modifications in the on-call system," so that the 17-hour shifts that follow an ordinary workday are reduced, "some increase in the payment of hours, and redistribution of schedules regarding patient quotas that need to be seen," Goya advanced.

"They are organizational issues within the pressure we are receiving from the Ministry of Finance to contain the growth of the SCS's spending, which is at levels that already exceed 10 points. As a consequence of this strike, we are looking for formulas that allow us to improve or provide solutions to the proposals" of the conveners.

Regarding the medical union's demands related to the fulfillment of agreements reached in 2023 with the regional Ministry of Health, the director of the SCS has emphasized that "what was proposed then has already been improved in many areas, so going back to those agreements would mean delaying or taking a step backward in terms of rights that the group has gained."

In his opinion, the medical group's demands refer to "agenda readjustments, changes in work models, new shifts, or redistribution of on-call duties because we have been improving working conditions at a very good pace throughout this legislature."