Massive demonstration in Madrid against cuts in the health system

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, led by Spanish health workers, demonstrated on Sunday in Madrid so they consider the destruction of the public health system by the conservative regional government.

He Madrid government has been the target of criticism in recent years, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, for the Shortage of staff in hospitals and primary care centers. Protesters say he is dismantling public health services and favoring private providers.

“They reduced our salary instead of increasing it. We are overwhelmed with work and we have no support. We are in danger of extinction“, said Reuters Lilian Ramis, 61, midwife at El Molar health center in Madrid.

protesters they filled the Plaza Cibeles, in the center of the city, with songs and waving flags. One of the demonstrators carried a huge doll of Isabelle Diaz Ayusothe right-wing head of Madrid’s regional government, with a nose similar to Pinocchio’s.

In Spain, regional governments are responsible for a large part of the health budget, under the country’s decentralized political system.

A regional government spokesman put the number of people who demonstrated at 250,000 in the streets of central Madrid, while the organizers speak of almost a million.

Ayuso denies the charge that his administration is dismantling public health services in favor of the private sector. “We all believe in public health,” he wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

This demonstration is the third major mobilization in less than three months in the Spanish capital, after two demonstrations, the first on November 13 and a second on January 15.

“In Spain, public health was very good, but It has deteriorated a lot lately, especially since the pandemic“Ana Santamaría, a Madrid native who attended the march with her friend Susana Bardillo, told AFP.

For Bardillo, it now takes weeks to get a primary care appointment. “With that, hospitals are saturated, because people end up going to the emergency room,” he explained, adding that this generates abuse that affects both professionals and patients.

In Madrid, some of the doctors in the public system have been on an indefinite strike since November 21 to demand better working conditions, a reduced patient load and salary increases.

Thousands of health workers also demonstrated on Sunday in Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain, to demand the maintenance of the public health system. According to the police, 20,000 people took to the streets.

In November, tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid to support healthcare workers, who were demanding better working conditions.

The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, claimed this Sunday his defense of “dignified, quality and universal” public health against the “model of the Popular Party which is the one who can heal”.

In his speech at the presentation ceremony of the socialist candidate for mayor of Malaga, Daniel Pérez, Sánchez pointed out that what caught his attention the most during the gala of the 37th edition of the Goya Awards, held on Saturday in Seville, many actors referred to public health.

In this direction, He asked “not to forget how important it is” to have “free, universal and quality” public health in Spainespecially after the “complex” moments of the pandemic.

“For this reason, given the model of the People’s Party, which is the one that can be cured, with its privatizations and with its cuts in public health, we defend decent, quality, free and universal public health,” he said. he indicated, without directly citing the demonstration in defense of public health that is being held this Sunday in Madrid and other regions of Spain.

(With information from Reuters, AFP and Europa Press)

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