The Federation of Health Technicians and Professionals will go on strike again the week of March 3, according to ARA. The tension between these professionals and the Ministry of Health has been going on for a long time, and, in fact, a year ago they already saturated the analytical services of hospitals and primary care centres (CAP) with an indefinite strike. Now the entity considers that the diplomatic route has been exhausted after several unsuccessful meetings with the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut) and has agreed to mobilisations for the first working week of March (from the 3rd to the 7th).

It was an innocent question: "How are you?" But enough to tip her over. "I burst into tears and I couldn't stop. I thought I was fine, but I had an anxiety attack. They sent me home and I spent two months with psychological help," explains Marta –fictitious name– an A&E nurse at Bellvitge Hospital. The increased workload, fatigue and uncertainty impact on health workers' mental health after almost two years of the pandemic. Marta works in the emergency surgical block, the only one of the five blocks that attended everything but covid during the pandemic, "and we have found ourselves with a greater workload because operating rooms, outpatient clinics and diagnostic tests have stopped, pathologies have taken longer to diagnose and tumors longer to be operated on, and this means it is more likely for there to be complications," she explains. She assures that they are not back to 100% activity. "At each wave, when beds were needed for covid, we have had to stop our activity. And now, with the sixth wave, patients cannot go up to the ward because they are occupied with covid patients and they accumulate in A&E, it is a collapse". After two months on sick leave she has already returned to her job.