Overview
- The medical strike was announced Friday by the Comité de Huelga and a coalition of unions and will begin on 28 October as an open‑ended national stoppage to oppose the Government’s Estatuto Marco.
- Unions demand a separate Estatuto Médico y Facultativo and specific changes including a real 35‑hour ordinary week, pay for extra hours and guard shifts, a new professional classification, and retirement rules that reflect doctors’ workload.
- The call is backed by CESM, SMA, Metges de Catalunya, AMYTS, SME, O'MEGA and the newly formed Unión Médica y Facultativa, which together represent a substantial share of practising doctors and coordinated earlier regional strikes.
- Health Minister Mónica García said she tried to avoid the strike and offered to study a doctor‑specific statute within a common framework but kept defending the text already sent to Congress, leaving talks limited and conditional.
- Previous short strikes this year forced hundreds of thousands of cancelled appointments in regions such as Galicia and Andalusia, raising officials’ warnings about service disruption and the financial cost if a national indefinite strike proceeds.