Médicos Unidos por sus Derechos (MUD) began as an independent association of public-sector clinicians. According to the source, it could organise demonstrations and speak publicly, but lacked the legal capacity to register a formal strike or negotiate with the administration.
That limitation led MUD’s organisers to establish Sindicato Médicos Unidos (SMU), giving the movement the legal tools to call industrial action. The two organisations remain closely coordinated, according to the material provided, and share a strategic direction led by practising clinicians, including SMU president Dr Catalina Fernández Méndez. Coverage described SMU as having been established only slightly more than a month before it announced the strike.
On 2 November, SMU announced an uninterrupted strike at national and autonomous-community level from 16 to 27 November 2026. The 12-calendar-day action comes as many other unions have reviewed or postponed their plans following the early election being brought forward. SMU says it will maintain its call. Other medical-union representatives have urged coordination while defending their unions’ autonomy. The Confederación Estatal de Sindicatos Médicos (CESM) warned that calling the action during the electoral campaign could weaken the collective, as reported by La Razón.
The union wants a dedicated Estatuto del Médico that separates doctors’ working conditions and pay from the general framework for other health-service professions and establishes a common national baseline. Its proposed statute would cover remuneration and working hours, including rest periods. It would also address continuity of care and continuing education, while covering professional careers and retirement. SMU has called for extraordinary, earmarked government funding, along with immediate measures by autonomous communities while the statute is processed.
Those regional demands include adequate staffing and dedicated negotiating tables for doctors. The union also wants a 35-hour working week in communities where that schedule is not in place, according to Onda Regional de Murcia. Its requests address national professional rules as well as employment arrangements managed within Spain’s autonomous health services.
The dispute centres on workforce rules. That is separate from the legal and digital-health topics scheduled for the fifth Derecho e Investigación conference in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on 13 and 14 November, covered in earlier conference reporting.
