(Madrid) Several hundred thousand people marched in Madrid on Sunday during a new demonstration in defense of the public health system in the Spanish capital region, undermined for months by the lack of manpower and means.
The demonstrators, including many caregivers, met to the sound of drums and whistles in different parts of the capital, before converging on the town hall, around banners proclaiming: “Health is not sold, it is defended” , noted AFP.
Numbering 250,000 according to the prefecture, and nearly a million according to the organizers, they demanded “more resources” from the regional government of Madrid, accused of favoring private providers to the detriment of the public health service.
“In Spain, the public health system was very good. But in recent years, it has deteriorated sharply, especially since the pandemic ”, notes Ana Santamaria, a resident of Madrid who came to parade with a friend, Susana Bardillo.
“To get an appointment, you now have to wait weeks. Suddenly, people go to the emergency room, which is completely overwhelmed, ”abounds the latter. This system “mistreats professionals, and mistreats patients”, she denounces.
This demonstration, convened by collectives of inhabitants, is the third of great magnitude organized for three months in the Spanish capital, after that of January 15 and especially of November 13, which had gathered 200,000 people, according to the prefecture.
It comes as part of the doctors in public establishments in the capital have been on strike since November 21, at the call of the main doctors’ union in Madrid (Amyts), to demand better working conditions and salary increases. .
“There are endless waiting lists. We can’t keep up,” explains Maite Lopez, a nurse in the audience, who is demonstrating to be “finally heard”. “The situation is dramatic, she laments, we cannot take good care of the patients”.
The discontent vis-à-vis the failures of the health system has affected in recent months other regions in Spain, a very decentralized country where the regional authorities have control over public health. But it is in Madrid that the movement is strongest.
Madrid region president Isabel Diaz Ayuso, a Popular Party (PP) figure and representative of Spain’s hard right, has repeatedly accused the protesters of being motivated by “political” interests.