Hospital del Mar emergency department is at the centre of a major legal complaint after unions reported three patient deaths following excessive waiting times in December.
The Barcelona Health Union of the CGT and the Federation of Workers of Catalonia-Intersindical (FTC-IAC) have filed a formal denunciation with the city’s duty court, alleging a ‘collapse’ of the emergency service.
Hospital del Mar Emergency Department: A System Under Strain
The unions’ complaint, seen by Europa Press, targets both the Catalan Ministry of Health and the Mar Parc de Salut de Barcelona Consortium.
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Consequently, they are accused of the ‘manifestly illegal abandonment of a public service’ due to omitted healthcare guarantees and poor management of care devices. The hospital, however, has issued a robust defence of its staff’s professionalism in an official statement.
According to the detailed complaint, the situation reached a critical point on 9 December. On that date, 170 patients were reportedly crammed into an emergency department designed for a maximum comfortable capacity of 110. Furthermore, 64 of those patients waited over 24 hours for medical attention, with one 76-year-old allegedly waiting more than 159 hours.
The most serious allegations concern three patient deaths. A 82-year-old is said to have died after a 40-hour wait. Subsequently, on 13 December, two more patients, aged 92 and 93, reportedly died after waits of 70 and 58 hours respectively. The unions argue this reflects chronic systemic saturation known to hospital management, increasing risks for vulnerable patients due to stress, lack of privacy, and professional overload.
The hospital’s response has been firm. It states it has received no official complaint from the unions and defends the clinical follow-up provided to all patients in its emergency department. Moreover, the centre insists that in all recorded cases of patient death (‘exitus’), the outcome was not affected by their location in the emergency unit. The management reserves the right to take necessary actions to defend its workers’ honour and professionalism.
To address rising pressure, the hospital outlines several measures. These include reinforcing inpatient capacity at Hospital del Mar and the Fòrum Centre with 52 additional beds, activating winter plan protocols, and working with the Sanitary Region to speed up patient transfers to intermediate care convalescence centres. This situation highlights the intense pressure on Barcelona’s public health infrastructure, a theme also explored in our coverage of the city’s broader emergency preparedness initiatives.
The legal complaint now places the spotlight firmly on the management of the Hospital del Mar emergency department and the wider systemic challenges facing Catalonia’s public health system during periods of high demand.
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