Cuts to healthcare and the state of the healthcare system are common topics in the social debate. In person and also in virtual. Social networks such as Twitter tend to be the favorite space for complaining, extolling virtues or claiming, for many citizens, but also for politicians and institutions. Under the title Healthcare in Spain. Analysis of the social conversation, the Social Conversation Observatory in Spain La Vanguardia-LLYC has analyzed the conversation about health that has taken place on Twitter in the last year: 3.15 million messages and 247,000 profiles, from the February 1, 2022 to February 13, 2023. A period marked by the strikes of the Madrid health workers.
The conflict has not escaped the debate, and perhaps that is why Madrid concentrates the largest volume of health debate on the web. All the topics analyzed have been negative, but the deterioration of healthcare monopolizes a “highly politicized” conversation.
The indefinite strike of primary care in Madrid in November due to the remodeling of the out-of-hospital emergency system and the subsequent mass demonstration have put healthcare in Madrid on the front line and turned it into the community that concentrates a greater part large part of the conversation, according to the extracted data.
And it is that “the social conversation is a speaker of the discomfort with healthcare”, points out Ibo Sanz, author of the study. In this sense, all the issues related to the deterioration of healthcare, such as social discontent (13%), healthcare collapse and cuts (6%), the shortage of personnel and resources (3%) and the deterioration and closure of centers (2%) take up much of the dialogue on Twitter (24%), and concern about the pandemic (5%) comes in second or third place.
It is the political profiles that talk the most about the situation caused by covid, while the Community of Madrid is the topic that activates the most patient profiles. Madrid captures almost half of the virtual health debate. 43% of the messages are mentions of the Community of Madrid. Catalonia, for its part, is the third community that sends the most messages (10%), although it is the one with the least activation per user (8.5 messages against Madrid’s 17).
Privatization and the deterioration and closure of centers are not the topics that accumulate the most mentions, although they are the ones that “generate the most negativity” in all communities, especially in Catalonia. On the other hand, political profiles avoid talking about privatization.
What there is no doubt about is that the healthcare debate “is a conversation with a high degree of politicization”, points out Ibo Sanz, who points out that healthcare is an issue that “mobilizes” the progressive electorate in particular. Thus, the progressive health conversation represents 52% of the profiles that talk about it. On the other hand, only 21% of conservative profiles enter the health debate. While the conservative profiles criticize the management of the Government and that the demonstrations are “political events”, the progressives denounce the collapse of the emergency services, call to attend the demonstrations and criticize the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso ; they also echo extreme cases or share the cost of treatments and devote space to thanking public health professionals.
The pandemic is behind us for many. And it can also be seen on Twitter, where it has ceased to be one of the most worrying points. In this sense, points out Sanz, “the loneliness of healthcare workers” who are no longer supported as at the beginning of the health crisis due to covid has become evident.
