Spaniards angered by austerity measures, including budget cuts and plans to partly privatise some of their country's cherished national health service, have held a rally in Madrid.

About 10,000 people, including health workers dressed in clinical white and blue, marched from four large hospitals on the outskirts of Madrid to central Puerta del Sol square on Sunday behind banners saying: 'Our public health service is not for sale, it's to be defended'.

Some protesters said they were outraged by Madrid regional government plans to convert a large hospital specialising in rare and infectious diseases into an old people's home and then sell it.

'Our hospital, Carlos III, is a medical reference point. We treat highly infectious illnesses. We serve a lot of patients. Yet they still want to get rid of it,' said nurse Natalia Fernandez, 34.

Javier Fernandez-Laquetty, Madrid councilor in charge of the region's health care, said the measures being implemented seek to achieve greater efficiency and guarantee that taxpayers survive the crisis with first-class hospitals.

'The measures are to ensure, responsibly, that we continue to have a high quality universal public health service, open to all,' he said.

Rally organisers, who called the march 'a white tide', said Madrid's regional health workers would hold four days of strikes on November 26-27 and December 4-5 to criticise the government's actions.

'We have built hospitals and health centres with public money and the government is handing them over to its friends,' said nurse Maria Victoria de Lucas, 52.

Health care and education are administered by Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions, rather than the central government, and each sets its own budgets and spending plans. Regions account for almost 40 per cent of public spending.

Many regions are struggling as Spain's economy contracts into a double-dip recession triggered by a real estate crash in 2008.

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Health care austerity protests in Spain