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La Voz de Madrid

Madrid's family doctors reject contracts due to forced mobility

The SIME union denounces that offered positions with mandatory displacements remain unfilled, highlighting the failure of retention measures.

Close-up of a medical resident's hand holding a pen over a document with blurred text and medical symbols.
IA

Close-up of a medical resident's hand holding a pen over a document with blurred text and medical symbols.

The SIME union denounces that the Community of Madrid is failing to retain newly trained family doctors due to the offer of contracts with forced mobility and mandatory displacements, leading to numerous positions remaining unfilled.

The Union of Doctors and Facultative Staff of Madrid (SIME), federated in CSIT PROFESSIONAL UNION, has indicated that the outcome of the latest selection of positions for Family and Community Medicine residents in the region confirms the failure of the retention measures announced by the Community of Madrid. According to the union, new specialists are rejecting the offered contracts, considering them unattractive due to forced mobility, mandatory displacements, and a lack of real stability.
CSIT PROFESSIONAL UNION criticizes that the Community of Madrid is seriously compromising the retention of family doctors trained in the region by offering contracts that require displacements outside their assigned health center. The union has been warning the Primary Care Assistance Management for over a year that this contractual model is incompatible with the objective of retaining new specialists.
Despite repeated announcements from the Community of Madrid about measures to attract and retain these professionals, such as financial incentives and longer-term contracts, reality shows that these initiatives are not yielding the expected results. In the last two years, the Primary Care Management has offered positions that require doctors to travel, at least one day a week, to a center different from their reference center.
For the selection of positions for residents finishing their training in July 2026, CSIT PROFESSIONAL UNION had already warned that 33 out of the 155 offered positions included mandatory displacement. These positions involved an average distance of 33.5 kilometers, with a maximum of 61.5 kilometers, and considerable travel times, without adequate compensation or negotiated labor planning.
The selection outcome has confirmed these warnings: 21 of the 33 positions with mandatory displacement remained vacant. Furthermore, out of the 139 summoned residents, only 49 accepted a position, representing a significant decrease of 43% compared to 2025 and 48% compared to 2024. The trend in recent years shows a progressive loss of attractiveness in Madrid's Primary Care, with the number of doctors choosing to stay dropping from 17 in 2021 to 49 in 2026.
For CSIT PROFESSIONAL UNION, the conclusion is clear: when the job offer includes unattractive conditions, forced mobility, and uncompensated displacements, doctors do not choose to stay in Madrid. The union argues that using these contracts to cover centers with severe staffing problems does not solve the shortage of professionals but rather fragments care, hinders continuity of care, and imposes economic and personal costs on the professional.
The union demands that the Ministry of Health and the Primary Care Management withdraw contracts conditioned by mandatory displacements, eliminate forced mobility, guarantee contracts linked to a specific health center, offer competitive working conditions, and negotiate with union representation any measure affecting working conditions. They also call for strengthening hard-to-staff centers with structural measures and analyzing the reasons for the decline in family doctors completing their training in Madrid.
SIME concludes that Madrid cannot continue announcing retention measures while offering contracts that impose mobility and uncertainty on newly trained doctors. The solution, according to the union, lies in strengthening Primary Care with stable staffing, dignified conditions, and real professional projects.

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