Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011 as a news item about a protest at Vall d’Hebron hospital during the 15-M movement. The phrase “until at least Wednesday” refers to that week.
Doctors, nurses and orderlies at Vall d’Hebron (a major hospital in Barcelona) are now the indignados (“the outraged”), and they are holding their own camp-out on the hospital grounds. They are protesting against cuts in the sector, and they are collecting signatures from everyone who uses the hospital.
Some of them are in no doubt: they believe all this is paving the way for healthcare to be privatized, which is why you can see signs reading “We are all users” and “Hospital for sale”. They have said they will keep spending the night at the hospital until at least Wednesday and, so as not to affect patients, only staff who have finished their shift will take part, so patient care won’t suffer.
“We want to draw attention somehow and prevent healthcare from being privatized, because everything suggests we’re heading towards the privatization of the health sector.”
You could say the Plaza Catalunya camp has moved to the hospital, where these new indignados will fight for the right to public, not private, healthcare.
Further reading
Featured image: Amadalvarez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
