Spain – Vigo comes alive with the largest demonstration of its history to demand a “public healthcare system,” which is now endangered with the opening of the first privately owned hospital.

With public opinion on the matter kept out of the decision-making process so far, citizens make their voices heard by taking to the streets in mass against privatization and the new hospital project with huge cost overruns since its onset, to demand their health care system be one that serves the needs of the people.

The tidal wave of masses was convened on Thursday the 3rd by the Association in Defence of Public Health of Galicia behind a single banner that proclaims: “For public healthcare”. The fear of many people that ended up coming together in the Porta do Sol, is the government of Alberto Nunez Feijoo, through its Regional Minister, Rocio Mosquera, privatizing the nation’s health care.

Chanting slogans like “we are patients, not customers,” people expressed a common grievance against the newly built privately owned hospital in Vigo. Some saying that even the cost for parking is out of the reach of the average citizen. The new privatized hospital is also set to cause the closure of the existing public hospital that has birthed generations.

The popular struggle against the privatization of the nation’s health care sytem has been a battle that has witnessed 100’s of thousands of people take to the streets against it repeatedly in recent years.


Image credit p/v @Reflex_volucion