The organizers complain about the “arbitrariness”, the “cuts” and the “unworthy” treatment of public health workers
A citizen demonstration will tour the center of Madrid this Sunday under the motto “Madrid gets up in the public healthcare“, convened by neighborhood associations and municipalities, to which the Primary Care emergency professionals are called, also called for a new day of strike.
The march, enlivened by batucadas made up of more than four hundred people, will start at 12:00 and will go through the streets of Madrid in four columns which, from different areas of the city, will converge in Plaza de Cibeles, where a stage will be set up on which a manifesto will be read and there will be various interventions.
The coordinator of the action, José Luis Yuguero, a resident of the Puerta del Ángel neighbourhood, in the Latina district, explained that the residents have joined to present “battle” against “arbitrariness”, “cuts” and “unworthy” treatment to public health workers by the Government of the Community of Madrid.
It is something that “we cannot admit” because they are “our heroes, they have given their lives in the pandemic and they are working their asses off to maintain the quality of care,” he asserted.
The call for the protest has received dozens of videos of support on social networks from actors like Juan Diego Botto, louis tosarAlberto San Juan and Jorge Sanzin addition to the film director Miguel Albaladejo.
In their manifesto, the organizers point out that the management of the Ministry of Health “strengthens the model of public-private collaboration” which means that “of every two euros budgeted for public health in Madrid, one ends up in private pockets”.
The Community of Madrid, being the region with the highest income per capita, “It is the one that invests the least money in primary carethe one that spends the least money per inhabitant and the one that has the fewest health centers per 100,000 inhabitants”, they affirm.
For the conveners, “they are attacking the labor rights from the workers and against the safety of citizens, without covering emergency centers with doctors and trying to replace the therapeutic relationship with video calls.
Among their demands, they highlight 25 percent of the health budget for Primary Care, the shielding of public health with the repeal of the laws that allow health privatization and the increase in staff both in health centers and in emergencies with “dignified and stable” contracts that stop the exodus of professionals from Madrid to other places.