Pamplona (EFE).- The SATSE union has called a nursing and physiotherapy strike in Navarra for February 28. It was after seeing how the Department of Health “has not complied” and has not brought the proposals of the group to the meeting of the General Board of the Public Service this Friday.
It was on Wednesday when SATSE announced that it had achieved, in a negotiation with the Department of Health, “improvements” in the working conditions of the almost 4,000 nursing and physiotherapy professionals who work in public health. However, they were not formally discussed at the General Table.
SATSE had previously called a demonstration for today, unrelated to possible agreements with the Administration and to “make clear the exhaustion that the nursing profession has suffered over the last few years and months.” The general secretary of the union, María José Algarra, has said it, who has read a statement before the Parliament of Navarra at the end of the march.
This has left the Health Center in the San Juan neighborhood of Pamplona an hour before with two main banners with the slogans “We want to take care of you with dignity. We demand solutions” and “Save primary care”. They also displayed many other small posters that called for voluntary early retirement”, “More nurses”, “Cap on quotas”, “STOP grievances” or “Quality healthcare”.
They do not rule out more mobilizations
Algarra has spoken about all this, who, in addition to calling a strike for the 28th, has said not to rule out more mobilizations. It will be “if they do not sit down to responsibly negotiate our proposals to put an end to our grievances and worsening of our working conditions.”
He recalled that the covid-19 pandemic “has generated the destruction of a health system that previously showed many signs of weakness.” Given this, nursing “has always responded to all care demands” and has avoided “an absolute disaster in care over the years.”
However, the different governments “have not compensated for the burden and burden that the health system has caused for nurses and physiotherapists.” On the contrary, “they have abused” their “capacity and commitment.”
For this reason, with the demonstration this Saturday it was intended to “demand” the fulfillment of the commitments made with the profession, so that nursing remains “at the center of the current and future care model, a model that replaces the current one, already obsolete, medicalized, excessively hospitable, incapable of responding to the massive aging of the population and the indiscriminate use of health services”.
SATSE calls for “a brave government”
To this end, Algarra has called for “a brave government, with a long-term vision, with experience in health management that is not guided by political interests and that is committed to a model that is capable of responding to this difficult situation.”
This model should prioritize the professional development of nursing “according to their functions and competencies, respecting and improving their working conditions, eliminating comparative grievances, developing and creating nursing specialty positions, favoring center leadership and management, establishing adequate ratios of nurses per patients”.
Also, “establishing early retirement, promoting true family conciliation and implanting once and for all the Bologna Plan in Public Function of Navarra so that we are recognized once and for all that we are a grade and we must be in group A”, he said .
However, she regretted that now and for years, they have “verified that words and commitments as well as applause always fall on deaf ears”, said the SATSE secretary to call the nursing and physiotherapy strike on February 28 .