Emergency department workers at Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar staged a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, calling for action over what they describe as a collapse in the service and unsustainable pressure on staff. The workplace committee, which includes FTC-IAC, CGT, CCOO, UGT, SATSE and Metges de Catalunya, said the walkout was a last resort after what it called an inadequate response from hospital management and the Catalan health department.

Staff representatives say patients have been left in corridors for more than 24 hours and that physical and verbal assaults against workers have increased. Hospital sources counter that patients are not being left unattended and say 67 additional beds have been made available, alongside measures to reinforce security and staffing teams.

Workers gathered outside the hospital at noon and briefly blocked the seafront promenade. Their chants included calls for an end to patients being left in corridors. The strike coincided with an indefinite doctors’ strike in Catalonia that began the previous Wednesday.

The committee says overcrowding is a structural problem, not a temporary surge. José Manuel Sancho of CCOO said the service had been under pressure since January, including during the summer. The committee also pointed to a 2017 announcement by the health department that, by 2021, no patient would spend more than 24 hours in emergency care because of a lack of an inpatient bed.

Workers say the overcrowding leaves them responsible for providing complex, ongoing care without adequate resources or staffing levels. Sancho described it as unacceptable for older patients to spend hours or days in corridors.

Xavi Tarragon of FTC-IAC said the death of a 92-year-old patient in the emergency department over the summer prompted the mobilisation. He said the department, designed for 110 to 120 people, often has more than 200 patients. As an example, he cited figures for Monday: 190 patients, including 44 who had been there for more than 24 hours and 21 aged over 75.

The committee says more than 64 patients have exceeded 24 hours in the department in a single day, and that some older patients have spent more than 160 hours there. It also links the reported rise in assaults to the daily strain caused by overcrowding, and says existing security measures and protocols are insufficient.

Sources: elDiario.es.