Madrid toilets take to the streets to ask for better working conditions
Hundreds of professionals in public health in Madrid have left this Monday at the gates of all the centers in the region, called by the new platform "necessary toilets", to denounce the "job insecurity" that they claim to suffer for years and to ask that the workforce of the entire healthcare system be strengthened.
The workers, dressed in masks and gloves and respecting the safety distance, have kept two minutes of silence for the deceased and sick by COVID-19, a pandemic that, according to critics, has revealed the situation of lack of workers who It has spanned the entire network of hospitals and public health centers for years.
This “silent” act was held at 8:00 p.m. at the doors of all primary care centers and hospitals, making it coincide with the traditional applause that during the state of alarm has served to show support for these professionals and to send them encouragement.
Demonstrations have taken place throughout the region, from the large hospitals in the capital - such as La Paz or October 12 - to the Infanta Sofía, in San Sebastián de los Reyes, with banners on which messages such as' Por decent contracts', '100% public health' and 'Users and workers united by public health', among others.
The scenario has been repeated throughout the Community, with a variable number of users depending on the size of the health center, to make citizens reflect on "who cares for those who care," explains the platform.
Its objective, as the spokespersons have explained to Efe, is for the population to become aware that "the conditions of the personnel and the number of workers must be reinforced", because public health has been "depleted" for years and because, if a As the coronavirus regrows, the system "cannot collapse in the same way."
This has been explained to Efe Laura Castillo, who ensures that the system must be strengthened, not only in the face of de-escalation and any possible regrowth, but because health "must have the ratios of years ago".
"The new normal must include robust public health, which implies investing in health professionals, with sufficient staff and decent working conditions," they explain in the manifesto.
They also demand that the reinforcements that have arrived in Madrid, coming from all over Spain, stay in health centers and hospitals, without this implying, as they denounce that it is happening, that new people are not hired due to vacations or sick leave. .
"It is true that there are professionals hired by the coronavirus that are going to stay until December, but they are not covering others on leave or on vacation: they are replacing some by others, so we are still the same number," sums up Castillo. .
Now what is necessary, adds the nurse, "lower the ratio of patients to doctors and nurses", both in hospitals and health centers, which are now "collapsed" and with "exhausted" professionals.
To all this is added, as they criticize, that the last five years have suffered the "cuts" and the "privatization" of the centers, and that their working conditions are "precarious, for years", something that "of course" worsens the patient care.
The platform, which asks the public the question of "who cares for those who care," asks for the support of the entire healthcare community and, also, of the citizens, in order to "put more pressure" and the governments "Listen to these claims."
