On Sunday, the largest demonstration against the regional government’s control over the healthcare system in the nation’s capital saw hundreds of thousands of Spaniards take to the streets of Madrid.
The central Spanish government claims that around 250,000 people participated in the protest in the city’s core. According to the organizers, the gathering was several hundred thousand people larger.
The phrase “The right to health is a human right” was written in Spanish on the protesters’ homemade placards. Protect the health system.
Left-wing parties, unions, and everyday residents opposed what they perceived as the conservative-dominated government of the Madrid region dismantling the public health care system and supported the march, which associations of health workers led.
These groups have regularly protested in the streets recently, and their movement is growing.
Before the May regional elections across the majority of Spain, Isabel Daz Ayuso, the regional director for Madrid, claims left-wing rivals’ political goals drive the protests.
Despite having the highest per capita GDP of any Spanish region, according to healthcare professionals, Daz Ayuso’s administration spends the least per person on primary healthcare. In Madrid, it is rumored that one goes to the commercial sector for every two euros spent on healthcare.
Her administration is criticized for causing long patient wait times and overworked physicians and nurses.
The health care system in Spain is a hybrid one, but the public sector is larger than the private one and is seen as a fundamental pillar of the state.
Spain’s regions govern it.
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