Unions rebel against the order to punish health workers for Zendal

naeem19

Unions present at the Madrid Health sector table have filed a contentious-administrative appeal for “violation of rights” regarding the Ministry's order for forced transfers of health personnel to the Isabel Zendal Nurse Emergency Hospital. After the opening of this hospital center last December and in the face of the refusal of many professionals to move there, the general directorate of Human Resources of the Community of Madrid sent a circular to the management of all hospital centers with precise instructions not to hire to health workers who had refused to provide their services in the new pandemic hospital - requesting all their personal data for registration -, as well as who could not return to provide services in the center of origin for a period of one year.


Are the six union organizations that are up in arms and that have signed this lawsuit, which in their opinion violates several articles of the Spanish Constitution. With a presence at the sectoral table, they represent the 85,000 SERMAS workers. The unions estimate that around 1,000 professionals , including nursing and specialist Belgium Mobile Number List doctors, have been forced to work in the new hospital under the threats previously exposed and up to 30% of the requested personnel have refused, opting for other destinations both in the private and in the different autonomous communities. There have even been health workers who initially volunteered and who shortly afterwards also declined to continue at the center. Union sources denounce that in other hospitals in the public network there are still entire floors with empty beds or that, for example, in the Reina Sofía and the Infanta Leonor they have unopened ICUs.



The unrest among professionals is growing after learning of a new resolution approved by the Ministry on January 28, which rewards an additional score (from 1 to 3) in the employment pool for docile health workers who agree to go to the Zendal. For this reason, the unions have sent a letter addressed to the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero; to the general director of HR, Raquel Sampedro; and to the Deputy Minister of Health Assistance, Juan J. González Armengol, to withdraw said order, taken - they say - “unilaterally” by the Government of Isabel Díaz-Ayuso and without respecting the framework of collective bargaining. The Ministry assures that this resolution was made with the agreement of the workers' representatives and to comply with a request from the union organizations. “Something that is not true,” affirm the unions and refer to their proposal in which they raised, among other issues, financial compensation for all SERMAS professionals in recognition.