Alex Trelinski
STAFF at Torrevieja Hospital have voted overwhelmingly to go on strike for the first time in the facility’s history.
96% of workers in a ballot turnout of just over 50% backed a walkout in the middle of the busy Easter holiday period.
The row concerns the Valencian Health Ministry’s plans to scrap a collective employment agreement made with the hospital’s previous private management company in 2020.
Torrevieja Hospital controversially returned to public management in October 2021 following the ending of the deal with Ribera Salud.
The Health Ministry is taking legal action to get the collective agreement withdrawn, but insists that little will change in practical terms.
The hospital works council says it has unsuccessfully tried to stop Valencian authorities from going ahead with plans to overturn the current deal.
They say an Easter strike will go ahead if nothing changes and would involve staff across the Torrevieja health department including the area’s medical centres.
Workers gathered outside the hospital doors on Thursday to vent their anger at a time when they are dealing with long emergency room waits and an operating room backlog.
They will stage a major protest in Torrevieja on March 4.
READ MORE:
- EXCLUSIVE: Crisis at Torrevieja hospital on Spain’s Costa Blanca as doctors quit in their droves and patients wait ‘up…
- Angry lab workers demonstrate outside troubled Costa Blanca hospital in Spain during Health Minister visit
