The nurses’ union, Satse, denounced in a statement that Ceuta is one of nine Spanish territories where the so-called “travel overlap” is not yet recognized for nursing professionals. These health systems (Andalusia, Asturias, Cantabria, Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia and Murcia, as well as the two autonomous cities) do not recognize the extra work that these professionals carry out every day outside working hours to ensure care to patients.
“Shift overlap” is the working time (from 20 to 25 minutes, at least) that a professional dedicates, outside of his working day, to providing his emergency department with clinical information and patient care, data which, at the same way, he receives when he goes to work from the professional who preceded him in the shift.
Satse underlines the “discrimination” that this entails compared to the rest of the Spanish professionals recognized for this work. The union recalls that in Navarre the “travel overlap” has been recognized for 22 years and in Aragon and Madrid for more than 17.
«According to the latest data offered by the Ministry of Health, in its Annual Report of the National Health System 2020-2021, there are 75,051 nurses working in the hospitals of the seven autonomous communities who still do not have the “daytime overlap” despite the existence of different judicial rulings that have agreed with the Nurses Union in the subsequent instances raised,” says the union organization.
The average annual working hours not recognized as working time for nurses in health care systems without recognition of “shift overlap” is as high as 80, according to Satse estimates.
.Satse proposes that the “travel overlap” should preferably also be compensated during working hours, as is already the case in regions such as the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country, Extremadura, Castile and León, Navarre and the Valencian Community . La Rioja has also just announced its start-up.
“The recognition of the “overlapping of working hours” is a clear example of how the care and assistance work carried out by the nurses of seven autonomous communities is not yet valued to its rightful extent”, complains the union.
