The human face of the cutbacks

Since Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced a drastic reduction in the annual budget last year, Spain's regional governments have been finding it increasingly hard to meet their spending commitments on health and education.

The regions face cuts of around 5 billion euros in total, and with an election due in November, tax hikes are, for the moment, not an option. Total debt in the regions is at 121.42 billion euros, more than 11 percent of GDP.

Catalonia is leading the cuts, and has announced a 2.86-billion-euro reduction in spending. Infrastructure spending has been trimmed, but emergency services have already been closed, and some health workers face the sack.

In Andalusia, the regional premier José Antonio Griñán has announced a cut of752 million euros. New investment has been postponed, and subsidies on prescriptions have been reduced.

In Valencia, the new regional head, Alberto Fabra, has already announced an adjustment plan with cuts in education and health of 680 million euros. Investment in universities is to be cut, and close to 1,000 civil servant vacancies will not be filled.

Other regions are set to take similar action. Dolores Cospedal, now the head of the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, announced soon after winning control of the region in the May elections that she would be cutting its budget by 20 percent.

Among the measures being considered by some regional governments is copayment, whereby patients pay toward the cost of a visit to their local health center, as well as toward prescriptions and other care.

"I've no idea what to do now they've cut my studies short"

Reduced spending on education means no doctoral grant for Beatriz Pérez

Beatriz Pérez is a 28-year-old chemistry graduate with a master in molecular biology. She has spent the last two years working at the CIPF research center in Valencia on an annual grant of 13,200 euros, while she prepared her doctoral thesis. The organization was legally obliged to offer her a full-time contract in July, but says that spending cuts mean they will not be able to hire her. She will be given no compensation. As her grant did not include social security contributions, she is not entitled to claim unemployment benefit while she looks for work. More to the point, her doctoral thesis is still at least two years from completion.

"I received a letter from the human resources department telling me that my contract would end on July 29. They said that they could not hire me full-time because they would be laying off a lot of people in the coming months. This is very serious - I don't know of any other case of a doctoral thesis grant being cut off like this, leaving me with no possibility of finishing it," she says.

The CIPF was set up in 2005 through a 60-million-euro investment, 70 percent of which was covered by the European Union. It was to be the regional government of Valencia's flagship research project into biomedicine. But within four years, the regional government began cutting funding. In 2009, it contributed 9.7 million euros toward the running of the institution, reducing that amount by half in 2011.

Beatriz Pérez joined the CIPF through a research program that consists of a two-year grant, followed by a two-year contract. "I have no idea what to do, I still haven't come to terms with what has happened; they have cut my career short, just like that."

The regional government's funding cuts have cast doubts over the future of the CIPF. In September, the institution's scientific board resigned in protest, while the management has announced that 104 of the staff of 250 are to be sacked. Further reductions are expected.

Beatriz, who is about to have an article published in a prestigious academic journal about her research, was given three days to clear out her desk at the center. Since then, she has been working with her supervisors on ways to complete her thesis, while bringing legal action against the center in a bid to force it to respect its contractual obligations.

"I'm hungry, I have no money and nowhere to sleep"

The crisis has seen the closure of hostels for the homeless

Constantin Muntean is a 50-year-old Romanian who has spent most of the last year tramping unsuccessfully from one corner of Andalusia to another in search of agricultural work. A former photographer in his homeland, who came to Spain in search of work, he has arrived in Jaén hoping to get work in the olive harvest, only to find that the city's hostel for the homeless has been closed.

"I am hungry, I have no money, and I don't know where I am going to sleep now," he says. Last year he found work driving a tractor at an olive farm in nearby Torredelcampo, but so far this year he has been unemployed. And now he has nowhere to sleep.

"I didn't know that the hostel had been closed," he says in his basic Spanish. He has been given a bus ticket by the local authorities to the town of Puente de Génave, on the other side of the province. The practice of sending unemployed itinerant workers to other areas is widespread, he says. "I'll probably make my way to Valencia, and see if I have better luck there," he says, hoping to find a job picking oranges.

The Jaén hostel for the homeless closed at the end of September when the Red Cross laid off the staff of nine. The organization has also been hit by the crisis, and shed full-time staff throughout the city. It was running the hostel, but says that it has not been paid by City Hall. The mayor has decided to close the hostel, saying that repair work is needed to provide it with hot water and heating. He says that he intends to reopen it by December, when hundreds of itinerant workers will descend on the city to begin the olive harvest. Last year, the hostel provided a roof for more than 3,000 mainly migrant workers, and provided more than 14,000 meals.

Jaén City Hall says that it will provide alternative accommodation to migrant workers. But outside the Red Cross premises last week, dozens of men looking for somewhere to sleep said that they had been given no indication of an alternative. Many of them were setting up makeshift beds and shelters outside the hostel, only to be told by local police to move on. "These centers are very important to people like us, along with other people that have lost their homes. It is a mistake to close them," says Muntean.

Marchouk Abderrahman, a 30-year-old Moroccan who came to Spain three years ago hidden in a truck, is also looking for work and somewhere to sleep. He has been working in the greenhouses in the Andalusian province of Almeria, where he was paid 40 euros for a 10-hour day, and is now hoping that he can make it through the winter by working on the olive harvest. "I was staying in the hostel, but I now have no idea where I will go," he says.

"It's about time the care workers were paid. I rely on their assistance"

Pensioner Pedro Cruz has lost his home help due to unpaid staff going on strike

Pedro Cruz hasn't been out of his apartment in the city's Alcantarilla neighborhood since September 28. His care worker Andrea, along with 250 other home-help workers in Jaén, has been on strike since then because she and her colleagues haven't been paid for four months. This means that aside from helping him with in-home care, she hasn't been able to take the 77-year-old out in his wheelchair.

The Popular Party-run city has debts of 3 million euros with Macrosad, the privately run company to which it has outsourced a range of healthcare services, leaving hundreds of infirm people without attendance. Only those with the most serious disabilities are being looked after.

"It's about time they paid them and sorted this dispute out - I need their help," says Pedro, who since last year has been among 51,000 people who receive home help in Andalusia. He and his wife have to manage on a pension of 500 euros a month, and do not pay for the service.

Three years ago, Pedro was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that has severely limited his mobility. His wife, also aged 77, is unable to move him, and his two children are at work all day. He and his wife rely entirely on Andrea. Every day, for two-and-a-half hours, she helps him get up, washes and dresses him, and then takes him out for some fresh air. With those vital services absent, his quality of life has sharply deteriorated. "I would ask the town hall and the company to reach some agreement. The people being hurt by this are those with no blame at all," says Pedro, who also says he understands the demands of Andrea and her colleagues.

Pedro's wife Josefa is taking part in the protests that the striking care workers have staged.

Andrea, a Russian who has been in Spain for six years, is paid 6 euros an hour for a six-hour day. She barely earns 600 euros a month, although she hasn't been paid since May. Many of her colleagues are already facing serious problems. "There are workers who are now relying on charities for food; others have had their electricity and water cut off because they can't pay their bills," says Carmen García, a labor union representative at Macrosad.

Since the strike began, the care workers have held demonstrations outside Jaen City Hall to draw attention to their plight. The mayor, José Enrique Fernández has threatened to contract another company to provide care services if they do not return to work.

Jaén City Hall receives the money to pay for vital services such as home care from the regional government in advance. The mayor, who took over in May after municipal elections, has accused the former Socialist administration of using the money for other purposes. "We are asking all municipal authorities to use money they are given by their regional governments for home help for that purpose alone," said Micaela Navaro, the Andalusian regional government's health and social welfare councilor last week.

The mayor has drawn up a timetable to pay the care workers their back salaries, calling on them to return to their jobs in the meantime. But they are refusing.

"We cannot continue working if we are not being paid," says Andrea.

"My operation was urgent, but six months have passed already"

Delays to her surgery have cost Camila Espinoza her job

Camila Espinoza sits down wearily at a table in a café close to her apartment in Barcelona. She asks for a bottle of water. She has time on her hands. Last week, she was sacked from her job as a sommelier after taking 16 weeks of sick leave this year. Meanwhile, the city's Vall d'Hebron hospital is unable to perform the operation she needs, citing a lack of resources.

"In March, the doctors there told me that I needed an operation urgently, at the most within three months," says 25-year-old Espinoza. "It's been six months, and they still haven't been able to tell me when they will be able to perform the operation," she says.

Shortly after her visit to the hospital in March, when doctors told her she needed an operation urgently to treat her acute renal infection, the regional government of Catalonia, presided over by right-wing nationalist party CiU, cut health spending by 10 percent, a move that has seen the closure of more than a third of operating theaters in the city's public hospitals. "My doctor is embarrassed about having to tell me that his team still has no idea when they will be able to operate," says Espinoza. "It's very depressing, but I have no choice but to try to carry on," she says through a wan smile.

Her life isn't in danger, but she could risk losing her left kidney if she doesn't have the operation she needs. She suffers from a congenital malformation that could become a chronic condition, and that would mean that she would need dialysis and treatment for life to keep her left kidney functioning properly. At present, her condition means she is susceptible to fevers and infections that prevent her from walking or even standing up for short periods. At the end of last year, she was told by doctors that the only way to prevent the infection from spreading and causing further problems was an immediate operation. But she says the same medical staff are now unable to look her in the eye when she attends her check-ups. "I am 25 years old... this is very cruel," she says, adding that she cannot afford the 12,000 euros a private operation would cost. "I don't want to think about what will happen if they can't operate on me."

After losing her job, she has not been able to think about taking up a new position. "I have had offers, but my illness means I can't be on my feet." At her last job interview she told her employers that she would be having an operation soon, so they hired her. After being taken to hospital five times, and having to take dozens of days of sick leave, she has been sacked. "I can't go around telling future employers that I will soon be well," she says. "It just isn't true."