Health minister accuses striking doctors of collusion with Opposition party

PALMA
THE Balearic Health Minister, Vicenç Thomas, said yesterday that it was “very evident” that the doctors and nurses who organised a mass protest in Plaza Espanya on Wednesday against government-enforced examinations in Catalan, were “linked” to the Opposition Partido Popular.

Hospital workers throughout the Balearics - from nursing staff through to senior consultants - had felt that the regional government had gone too far by obliging them to sit examinations for basic level Catalan as part of its linguistic policy. Doctors and nurses claimed that those applying for jobs in the Balearics would be judged not on their professional ability in medicine but rather on how well they spoke Catalan.

Thomas said that the medical workers' unions - and by implication the PP who supported the rally - were only interested in “creating conflict out on the street” using the Catalan language and the public health service in order to achieve their aims.

Speaking at the Balearic Medical College yesterday, Thomas went further by pointing out that it was the Partido Popular during their last term of office in the Balearics, who had approved a policy favouring the use of Catalan in public office and consequently promoted laws to that effect. “It is the PP initiative on which the present Socialist coalition government is basing its demand for public sector employees to have a certain level of spoken and written Catalan,” said Thomas. “If the PP want to wriggle their way out of this particular legal mire, then perhaps they can unravel the Balearic Constitution as well,” he challenged. He said that anyone wanting a government post - including within the health service - in the Islands needs to have the required level of Catalan, not as a complement to their medical qualifications but as a prerequisite. “We may be able to make certain exceptions with hospital staff,” said Thomas, but apparently this is not enough reassurance for doctors and nurses who have come to the Balearics from the mainland. “People living in the Islands have a right to speak in Catalan if they so wish,” he added. “People working in the medical profession need to respect that.”