The president, Juan José Cabal, believes that the new Canary Islands strategy will not work due to lack of personnel and budget
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The regional president of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG), Juan José Cabal, warned this Wednesday of the “shocking deficit” of professionals in the public health system.
“Hard times are coming, many will be missing in five years,” he warned in a speech before the parliamentary committee on Health in which he made it clear that the workforce must be reinforced and “there is no generational change”, and with the threat of the ‘labour emigration’ in light of the better working conditions offered by the countries of central Europe.
He regretted that despite the increase in the regional budget for Primary Care, it still does not reach 30% of what is set by the World Health Organization (WHO) –around 14%, above the national average– and in a context of “clear ageing” of society, the demand increases, also because it is “universal and free”.
To the problems is added that “tourists must be added” because with the European health card they also “go to public health” and that patients want “everything to be immediate” and they go to the doctor because “everything has been medicalized” , if something hurts, a relative has died, they got angry with the boss or argued with their partner.
Although with the new Primary Care strategy the agendas must have 34 patients “they are usually 50 or more” and if an appointment is made for 5 days, the emergency room is finally attended.
Cabal has influenced the “lack of attractiveness” of the Family Medicine specialty and its “care overload”, as well as the “precarious conditions” derived from a “chronic eventuality”, with doctors who have retired in a situation of interim.
He has also warned of the “salary differences” that exist between autonomous communities and family reconciliation problems, one of the causes that, for example, last year almost 200 MIR positions remained vacant throughout Spain or that 7% abandoned the specialty in the first year.
Along these lines, he has lamented that the main objective of the professionals is “to carry out the consultation and get out of the way day by day” and not so much to promote healthy lifestyle habits or prevent diseases, for which reason he has called for reorganizing templates and freeing workers from “bureaucratic functions” that can represent up to 40% of their functions.
He has also lamented that the medical histories are different between communities but also between specialties -Drago program in the Canary Islands- which makes him continue with “the flyers”.
Regarding the new Primary Care strategy launched by the Ministry of Health in the Canary Islands, he has valued its “good faith” but predicts that “it will not go ahead” due to a lack of personnel and budget, to the point that it has slipped if it is not a ” ploy” before the elections.
“DO NOT ASK US FOR MORE EFFORT, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE”
Cabal has pointed out that it is “wonderful” that 34 patients are fixed by schedule but he wonders who is going to attend to “35, 36 and 37” because “they stand at the door” to be attended.
In addition, if an additional 300 euros are offered for consulting another four hours in the afternoon after a day of eight in the morning, he has wondered how he is going to “reconcile” his personal and family life. “Don’t ask us for more effort, it’s impossible,” she added.
Along these lines, he states that the Primary Care model “has no future” because the workforce is “scarce” –35% are over 60 years old– and a high rate of “burnouts” and has warned that “if Attention Primary collapses, the entire system collapses, a great pact is needed for health at the state level.
He has predicted that “the hunger games” will begin between autonomous communities to “steal professionals”, emphasizing that in some congresses there are already “stands” to attract professionals, giving as an example that in Ireland up to 200,000 euros are paid per year “without nights and from Monday to Friday” or in France up to 8,000 euros per month and five years of tax exemption.
He has warned that the “niche” of bringing doctors from Latin America “is over”, although he has warned that Spain, Portugal and the countries of Eastern Europe will be the “Cuba and Venezuela” of the countries of the North.
“Support the primary or otherwise, we have a bad future,” he warned.
