This Friday, the indefinite strike of doctors in the Canary Islands has begun with the aim of achieving the reinforcement of the salary and labor improvements demanded by the group, EFE has reported.
They demand "to negotiate directly in a double sense" so they demand the mediation of Ángel Víctor Torres, since they reject the entire team of the Ministry of Health as an interlocutor", he tells the Agency.
In addition, "they want their demands to be treated separately, not within those that are discussed for the entire health staff at the table where the other unions are", they affirm.
Therefore, they insist that their "only valid interlocutor" is President Ángel Víctor Torres, who this week "has asked all parties to comply with the agreements they sign" and has criticized that "a strike is being considered a few days before an election", confirms the Agency.
This same Wednesday, CCOO, UGT, Intersindical Canaria, SEPCA and CCOO, UGT and Cemsatse - the latter organization in which the Medical Union is integrated - agreed at the Sectoral Health Table with the general director of the Canarian Health Service (SCS), Elizabeth Hernández, "to initiate the revision of the remuneration of the entire public health staff", confirms the Union.
Despite this, the Union explains that "that agreement is not enough to call off the strike, among other things, he says, because the text of the agreement itself says that the dates that have been announced for that review "will be subject to the circumstances of the moment, and may be affected". In addition, he alleges that his strike is still standing because it is not "only about money, but about an improvement in public health".
This Friday, May 19, they have denied that their strike "responds to political interests", due to the proximity to the regional elections, and has pointed out that "one of the reasons that leads them to exercise this right is that the salaries in the archipelago are "at the bottom of Spain".
In statements to the media during a protest in front of the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the president of the Union, Álvaro Morales, has called for "a change in the model of the Canarian Health Service (SCS) that avoids, among other things, the "exodus" of doctors to other autonomous communities with better working conditions", collects EFE.
"We will maintain this strike until Ángel Víctor Torres calls us and sits down with us to negotiate"
"We will maintain this strike until Ángel Víctor Torres calls us and sits down with us to negotiate because the conversations with the Ministry of Health have reached a dead end", Morales makes clear.
Regarding specific measures, in addition to salary improvements, Morales has demanded "a limitation on the number of patients" they attend per day to guarantee "a minimum of sufficient minutes" to adequately care for the sick.
"Attending to a patient in three, four or five minutes is not enough", he acknowledges. That often makes patients "have to return because they have not been properly diagnosed and that becomes an endless cycle", lamented the president of the Medical Union.