Canary Islands doctors' strike: appointments postponed

What changes for patients and visitors?

Doctors in the Servicio Canario de la Salud (SCS), the Canary Islands' public health service, have been on strike since 16 October. As a result, public hospitals and health centres are postponing operations, appointments and tests.

There are no figures for individual areas, such as the south of Tenerife or Gran Canaria. Nor has a breakdown by island been published for the current strike.

The PSOE tells parliament that hundreds of operations, appointments and tests have been postponed and that emergency departments are overloaded. No current figure for the ongoing strike is known.

Minimum services apply during the strike, but the documents available do not say how far they go. The unions call them abusive.

Anyone with an appointment in the public system should ask the health centre or hospital directly whether it will go ahead. How affected patients will be rescheduled is not known.

Visitors should check with their travel insurer what applies if they need treatment. The sources contain nothing on private care or insurance.

Who is on strike, and for how long?

CESM Canarias (Sindicato Médico) and SEMCA (Sindicato de Empleados Médicos de Canarias) announced an indefinite strike from 16 October on 7 October. The two unions form a joint strike committee and say they speak for up to 8,000 doctors.

On 28 October the strike was extended to 10 November. According to Medicina Responsable on 11 November, the stoppages run to 17 November unless a deal is reached, so the sources differ.

On the first day, the health department put turnout at 9.1%, while the unions said 58%. For 19 October the department gave 9.34%.

What do the doctors demand, and what does the government offer?

The unions demand better pay, more rest after on-call shifts (guardias) and their own negotiating framework with separate representation. They say night shifts are paid below the normal hourly rate and third-year residents (MIR) work up to seven 24-hour shifts a month, but they are open to spreading the pay rises over several years.

Esther Monzón, the Canary Islands health councillor (consejera de Sanidad), spoke on 17 October of 14 measures and 40 to 50 million euros more, according to Diario de Avisos. Shifts would fall from 24 to 17 hours, and she warned that the offer would be harder to deliver once the budget is closed.

Clavijo cites 150 million euros in extra funding for doctors' pay. How that sum relates to Monzón's 40 to 50 million euros, and what period it covers, is not known.

Monzón demanded that the unions suspend the strike before talks, which Éric Álvarez, president of the Sindicato Médico, rejected. According to the strike committee, 18 goals of its strategic plan remain unanswered, and the government's last offer arrived on 22 October.

At the end of October the unions wrote to Clavijo that they had lost confidence in SCS director Adasat Goya. Goya says the unions that called the strike do not represent all doctors, and SEMCA president Javier Luño demanded that he be removed from the talks.

Where does Clavijo draw the line?

Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands, told parliament on 11 November that he would resume negotiations and meet the doctors in person if necessary. He called the doctors' demands legitimate.

His condition is that no agreement may lower the quality of care for patients. He warned that some of the unions' organisational measures would do exactly that.

“We are not here to defend the unions but the people,” Clavijo said. The government can only promise what is economically viable, he added, pointing to the limits of the Canary Islands budget and the lack of a national budget.

Sebastián Franquis, PSOE spokesperson, urged Clavijo to lead the talks himself and accused him of inaction. Nicasio Galván, Vox spokesperson, also pressed him to meet the doctors' representatives.

The PSOE disputes the money argument, with Franquis citing 335 million euros for private-sector contracts in 2025 and a 432 million euro rise in medicine spending. These are PSOE figures, and no government reply is available.

How long has the dispute lasted, and who is responsible?

The dispute began in autumn 2025 in the national row over a separate framework statute (Estatuto Marco) for doctors. The Canary Islands unions later added their own regional demands.

In June, CESM cited about 57,000 postponed appointments and around 1,500 suspended operations from earlier waves of strikes. On 30 June the health department counted 34,382 patients on the waiting list for operations, 7.8% more than a year earlier.

In June the SCS offered 20% more for on-call duty and more new hires. CESM called the offer “cynical, shameful and unacceptable”.

The framework statute rests with the central state. According to the UGT union, working organisation, on-call duty, pay and staffing mostly rest with the regional government and the SCS.

The UGT signed a preliminary agreement with the health department and considers its dispute over. The other unions say it does not meet their expectations.

What happens next?

Clavijo named no date for a meeting with the unions, and the parliamentary session brought no progress on their demands. The last meeting between the government and the unions was on 14 October.

It is open whether the strike ends on 17 November, is extended again or is suspended. It is equally unclear whether the unions will accept a deal on the on-call model and their own representation.

Both sides would have to give ground, Clavijo said, and in the end what counts is what is possible. For patients that means postponements remain possible while the strike lasts, and much will then depend on the outcome of the talks.