Spain's medical unions are splitting over who leads the indefinite strike, registered to begin on October 28. CESM, SMA and SME will proceed without Amyts, Metges de Catalunya and O´Mega.
Three weeks ago, the unions met to set a new timetable for protests. The meeting exposed a dispute over who should lead the national action. CESM, SMA and SME have now formally registered an indefinite strike starting on October 28. Amyts, Metges de Catalunya and O´Mega are outside that committee.
According to Deia, the move followed a lack of progress in talks and the transfer of the draft law to parliament without several of the doctors' main demands. The organisations had formed a common front only months earlier. They had also been coordinating pressure on the Ministry of Health.
The break is real.
The unions still share the main demand. They oppose the Estatuto Marco promoted by Mónica García. They want parliamentary groups to change the text so doctors are drawn to the public system instead of being pushed towards private medicine. The immediate dispute is about who should organise the national action and which unions should formally call it.
Spain's medical unions have formally registered an indefinite strike starting on October 28, 2026, after negotiations over the Estatuto Marco failed to produce progress on their main demands.
Víctor Pedrera, secretary general of CESM, told Redacción Médica that the split had come from what he called cosmetic reasons. He said CESM's central role was logical because the confederation brings together 15 regional medical unions. In his view, the change should not affect the campaign's substance.
Amyts and Metges de Catalunya, which have formed a confederation with a national remit, said they wanted to organise their own call. They also said they wanted to leave the existing committee. CESM says it tried to keep the previous structure and offered decisions by consensus, even if the ministry joined the process.
That plan failed.
The Xunta de Galicia said that protests since December had affected almost 270,000 medical procedures in the region. It warned that an indefinite strike could place additional pressure on waiting lists and increase uncertainty for patients and health services.
Amyts says the reorganisation was unilateral. The union says it learned about the change through media reports instead of direct consultation. It also says it never asked to leave and had joined the renewed common front formed at the end of December 2025.
That group included CESM, SMA, Metges de Catalunya, Amyts, SME and O´Mega. Only SME remains with the three unions now calling the indefinite strike.
Metges de Catalunya has taken a similar position. The Catalan union says it did not request removal from the committee. It also says the decision does not end its relationship with CESM. Joint action will continue where possible, while the union considers its next steps after the creation of the Unión Médica y Facultativa, known as UMYF. That confederation also has the authority to call a state-wide strike.
O´Mega has already said UMYF will have its own strike committee. The three unions outside the CESM-led structure belong to that confederation. The dispute could therefore produce parallel organisational channels around the same opposition to the Estatuto Marco.
El Español reported that the separate structure also includes medical organisations from Madrid, Catalonia and Galicia. The argument is about more than the practical organisation of the action. It is also about its format and formal leadership.
SME has stayed with CESM, SMA and the wider confederal committee. The Basque union says it has always supported unity because it is independent of both CESM and UMYF. Its position is direct: organisations that create a separate committee and call their own strike cannot reasonably expect to belong to both.
The split creates a practical problem. The unions still share an objective, but they are dividing the machinery used to present it, register actions and mobilise doctors. An earlier housing analysis also examined political pressure on government measures, but this dispute is about medical employment rules and union authority.
CESM says the public message can stay united after the internal structure changes. Amyts and Metges reject the way the change was made. SME accepts one organisational choice. UMYF gives the excluded unions a separate route to national action.
The parliamentary path has added pressure. El Debate reported that Congress rejected a related initiative on the Estatuto Marco. The decision showed that political agreement around the reform remains out of reach while the unions continue to demand changes to the text.
The common demand remains. The common command does not. Doctors must now decide which call to follow. Unless the organisations coordinate their committees and actions in practice, opposition to the Estatuto Marco will reach parliament through competing union structures instead of one national front.
