The Basque union majority calls a strike in Osakidetza for February 28

Unions SATSE, ELA, LAB, UGT and CC. OO. have called for the next day 25 strike in Primary Care and 28 throughout Osakidetza. In addition, they have announced demonstrations for the 26th (12:00 noon) in the three capitals of the Basque Autonomous Community (CAV) due to the Basque Government’s refusal to solve “the serious problems plaguing” the Basque Health Service.

In a press conference that these union centrals have offered this Monday in Bilbao, they have criticized that, “after the massive demonstrations held on January 23, Osakidetza and the Department of Health they haven’t taken a single stepnor have they proposed a single measure to solve the serious existing problems” in Basque public health.

The unions have recalled “the massive follow-up” that the past mobilizations had, which are “a reflection of the discomfort and weariness, both of the workforce and of the citizens themselves in the face of the dismantling and precariousness” of the Basque Health Service.

However, he has denounced that, “once again”, the Executive has chosen to “follow its broken sheet”, without proposing solutions. In fact, they have ensured that the Department of Health “has launched new cuts”, among those who have cited the closure of the emergency room at the Santiago de Vitoria-Gasteiz Hospital. “A closure that is also carried out in the midst of a pandemic,” they have criticized.

The union representatives have read a joint declaration in which they have denounced “the complete lack of planning of the generational change of the staff” of Osakidetza, who is around 50 years old on average, and “the systematic abuse to which Osakidetza submits its staff” that is generating “a flight of professionals from Primary Care to specialized care, to private health or even abroad”. As they add, “this flight is not exclusive to Primary Care. The same thing happens at all levels of care and in all categories (…) given the systematic overload of work, the lack of prospects for improvement and the lack of resources, many professionals decide to retire as soon as they have the opportunity”.

Besides, the pandemic is being, according to the convening unions, the “perfect excuse to continue with its policies of cuts, dismantling, precariousness, lack of investment, privatization and dismantling of public health”.

Thus, they insist that “what our public health system is suffering it is a continuous attack in timewhich has caused a citizen alliance between those who provide their services in health centers and the population, as we have seen in recent weeks. That alliance is the one that calls into question the health policies of the PNV government.

He has also criticized that the Department of Health “has been emptying the content” of the Health Sector Table, which has become, in his opinion, “a merely informative forum, in which absolutely nothing is negotiated and in which Osakidetza imposes both the topics to be discussed and their content”. Given this, they have announced that they will not participate again in the meetings of this entity “until a real and content negotiation is proposed.”