Spanish doctors strike from 28 October, with no end date

If you live here or own a second home, it is worth pulling up your calendar. Spain’s medical unions have announced an indefinite strike starting on Wednesday 28 October, with no agreed end date. Emergency care keeps running, that is fixed by law, but scheduled consultations, tests and operations may slip. Here is what is going on and what you can do about it.

What exactly has been announced

On 11 September the medical unions’ strike committee called a national strike from 28 October, for an indefinite period. Six organisations are behind it: CESM, the Andalusian SMA, Metges de Catalunya, Madrid’s Amyts, the Basque SME and Galicia’s O’Mega. The UMYF union supports the action.

One correction to reports you may read elsewhere: CESM initially floated mid-October. That date is out of date; the committee has settled on 28 October. What is new is mainly the word indefinite. Earlier this year there were strikes of one week per month from February to June, each with an announced end. Not this time.

What the dispute is about

The immediate trigger is the Estatuto Marco, the law governing the working conditions of all healthcare staff, dating from 2003. In early September the cabinet approved the draft revision; it is now with Congress.

Doctors feel their profession is buried inside that shared framework, because it was negotiated with general unions and the nursing representation. They want a statute of their own. On the table: a 35-hour week, recognition and payment of overtime, on-call duties on a voluntary basis, a professional classification matching the length of their training, and changes to pension arrangements.

How hard this hits the Costa Blanca

National means national: the Comunitat Valenciana is included, and with it the hospitals and health centres along our coast. How big the effect will be is another question, and the two sides are far apart on the answer. During the June strike week the Conselleria de Sanitat put participation at 6.86 per cent of doctors, with higher figures in Alicante than in Valencia and Castelló. CESM itself claimed close to ninety per cent.

That gap partly explains itself: the CESM-CV union complained that the imposed minimum service levels were above 75 per cent, so on paper many doctors were simply at work. What counts for patients is what is left over, and in earlier rounds that was concrete enough: postponed consultations and tests, on top of a waiting list on which more than 72,000 people were already waiting for surgery in June.

What you can arrange now

Start by checking what you already have booked. In the Comunitat Valenciana your appointments appear in the GVA +Salut app, where you log in with your SIP number and date of birth, or through the Conselleria website; calling your centro de salud also works. If something important is scheduled for the second half of October or for November, ask whether it can be brought forward. For a repeat prescription or a check-up that is often easily done.

Watch your medication too. If a chronic prescription runs out around that time, make sure the renewal is in place before 28 October; pharmacies stay open, but the doctor who has to renew it will be harder to reach.

Beyond that: cancel what you do not need, because a cancelled slot moves someone else up the queue. If you come over to a second home and use a European health card or an S1 form, bear in mind that waiting times for anything non-urgent can stretch; supplementary private cover or a consultation at a private clinic is then a fallback, though you pay for it yourself.

And if something really happens

In an emergency nothing changes about what to do. Call 112, or go to the urgencias of the nearest hospital. Emergency care, intensive care, births, dialysis and cancer treatment fall under the minimum service levels, which are set per strike by the regional government and published shortly beforehand. For 28 October that list does not exist yet.

For routine care: leave your appointment standing until you hear otherwise. The hospital calls or messages if something moves, and turning up in person to ask only adds to the crowd in a waiting room that is already under strain.

About the authorLeonie

Leonie lives on the Costa Blanca. She writes about daily life on the coast: the markets, the walks and everything you only discover once you actually live here.