Him Weekly epidemiological report of the General Directorate of Public Health indicates that the flu rate in the Community of Madrid has reached 42 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, double that of last week, levels that in 2024 were not exceeded until the end of December. The epidemic threshold has been exceeded. “But the Ministry of Health has not hired the nurses who will have to assist the people of Madrid”, denounces the Satse Madrid union. It is estimated that at least 13,000 more are needed. They ensure that there is a shortage in all sectors, welfare and social-healthcare, both public and private. “The staff is very scarce and insufficient to deal with the situation with minimum guarantees,” they insist.
The Ministry of Health, which estimates a medium-term shortage of around 100,000 nurses in Spain, reports that the Community of Madrid is the region with the lowest rate of these professionals in primary care per 1,000 inhabitants and is also below average in specialist care. We remind you that in the last Interterritorial Council of 12 November the need to coordinate actions between all regional health services to deal with the seasonal epidemic of respiratory viruses, in particular influenza and covid-19, was highlighted again.
“Last year the PP boycotted the common protocol. Last week I sent a letter to all communities to implement it,” Health Minister Mónica García explained on Wednesday. Satse Madrid spokesperson, Ricardo Furió, accuses the regional executive of mistreating nurses with short contracts and lower salaries than the rest of the autonomies.
He is worried: “The collapse of emergencies is starting. The Ministry of Health has not done its homework in time.” Their union compares the situation in Madrid with that of Andalusia, where the hiring of more than 3,000 nurses and two-month full-time contracts for temporary staff has been announced. Sources from the Ministry of Health claim that “the service is sized correctly”. They communicate that there will be an imminent strengthening of staff with the presentation of the Winter Plan next week, but they do not anticipate specific figures.
“The Community of Madrid has informed us of the hiring of around twenty primary care nurses to vaccinate in residences and little else,” says the union. The regional government insists that influenza circulates in the region at stable levels and is monitored at all times by the Directorate General of Public Health.
Hospitals at their limit
But health workers can’t take it anymore. “The situation is unbearable, patients are lying in the corridors, without chairs, it takes six or seven hours to be seen by a doctor. It seems like a war. We can’t take it anymore, we are exhausted, we need reinforcements,” says nurse Juan Ángel Cano, 28, from the 12 de Octubre Hospital. “We should isolate patients with respiratory problems so as not to infect others, but since there are no beds, they are all mixed up. Even if they have masks, there is no risk”, he confesses.
Guillén del Barrio, nurse and member of the Workers in Red union, assures that even at the hospital in La Paz they are overwhelmed. “We had a very bad summer and now we are getting worse with the arrival of the flu. The winter will be horrible. There is a lack of people, the minimum services are not always respected. They owe us 23,000 days of vacation. That is 100 contracts for a whole year”, he underlines after saying that they already have patients without an assigned bed.
The Gregorio Marañón hospital is already at capacity, according to the Satse Madrid union. “Its renovated emergency room has served to accommodate more patients in each space, even though the same nurses will be there to care for them,” they point out. They assure that in this center they have hired doctors, but not nurses, “underestimating their work, since, predictably, they will leave other units that already bear high pressure”.
They estimate that the Gregorio Marañón Hospital will need around a hundred nurses, but they assure that this center has informally informed them that they will be able to hire 30 or 40, “if they find them”. The average run by the Satse Union Section is that around 80 hours are owed to each professional, “resulting in an overworked, stressed and tired workforce”.
The Ministry of Health attributes the lack of health workers to a widespread problem in Spain. “Mónica García continues with her policy of absolute inaction, not accrediting non-EU positions that would make it possible to alleviate this situation. She continues without presenting the Human Resources plan to the autonomous communities, as she promised many months ago in the Interterritorial Council”, they criticize.
Satse Madrid also denounces the situation at the Puerta de Hierro University Hospital. “It owes its nurses more than 50,000 hours of excess work. Paychecks have been suspended, shifts have been forced to double, some have been left without being able to enjoy the days off they had requested well in advance. The response from the Ministry of Health is that they are waiting for authorization from the Treasury Ministry to proceed with the hiring”, they communicate.
Those 50 thousand hours, the union reports, represent more than 2 and a half weeks that, on average, nurses owe: “We don’t want words, we want this hospital to solve a problem that we had already reported a long time ago and for which we filed a complaint with the Labor Inspectorate. It’s time for our public health managers to do their job.”
