SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 25 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Official College of Physiotherapists of the Canary Islands, Santiago Sánchez, has warned this Tuesday of the lack of professionals in the Canary Islands Health Service and the great disparity between islands.
“Not even in the best of cases, we come remotely close to the expert recommendation of one physical therapist for every 1,200 inhabitants.
Currently, we are in a ratio of a professional who cares for 5,198 canaries”, he details in a note, in which he also stresses that “the estimate of this ideal ratio was made 13 years ago, so obviously, and with the current aging population, the gap is much greater.
As can be seen from this document, which reflects and compares the number of workers in the health institutions on the islands, in the last year six physiotherapy professionals have been lost in the Canary Islands and “a huge gap between the number of real effective and organic staff, so it is urgent to summon all those places to stabilize the staff”.
In fact, the newly created positions in the organic staff amount to only 11 physiotherapists, according to the official document.
In this case, and according to the COFC, “we are facing a very low approach for the real needs of the system and the replacement rate for retired people has not been considered”.
In this line, he states that “there are more and more health professionals in the SCS but fewer and fewer physios, in general, it is detected that the figures of all health professionals are rising and improving, except those of the group of physiotherapists”.
Likewise, it indicates that “it is also striking that, in the primary care service of Gran Canaria, all health personnel are decreasing, something that can result in worse patient care.”
This professional group also points out that this update violates the principle of equity, since access to public physiotherapy services is very uneven between the different islands of the archipelago.
“If we add the professionals registered in the different hospitals and health centers in the Canary Islands, we see that 179 physiotherapists provide services in Tenerife, in La Palma there are 21, on the island of La Gomera there are 11 people registered and only 6 in El Hierro”, they detail. .
For the province of Las Palmas, in Gran Canaria there are 109 professionals, in Lanzarote 59 and for Fuerteventura there are 33 physiotherapists.
THE SERVICE DEPENDS ON THE ISLAND OF RESIDENCE
“Not only do these figures not match the ideal proportion for the population of each of the islands, but there are many differences between them, so the care that SCS patients receive will depend to a large extent on where you reside,” point out from the COFC.
If the breakdown by services is made, only 21 professionals work in Primary Care in Gran Canaria compared to 44 in Tenerife and in the rest of the islands it can be seen that there are 9 physiotherapists for the population of Lanzarote, 13 for Fuerteventura, 8 in La Palma, 4 on La Gomera (lost one compared to 2022) and only 3 on El Hierro.
In this way, the ratio per inhabitants would be: Gran Canaria, 1/41,226, Tenerife 1/21,578, Lanzarote 1/16,778, Fuerteventura 1/9,433, La Palma 1/10,599, La Gomera 1/5,525 and El Hierro 1/3,718. “figures very far” from the ratio that experts recommend of 1/1,200, point out from the College.
Regarding hospital care, the ratio would be 1/9,838 for Gran Canaria, 1/7,033 for Tenerife, 1/3,020 in Lanzarote, 1/6,131 in Fuerteventura, 1/6,523 for La Palma, 1/3,157 in La Gomera and of 1/3,718 for El Hierro.
The College of Physiotherapists of the Canary Islands also regrets the loss of 80 jobs on the island of Gran Canaria that were hired for tracking work during the pandemic, whose contract was not renewed and could be used to provide services on shift late, for staff reinforcements or projects
community health.
On the other hand, it indicates that six hospital care places in Lanzarote and one in Primary in La Gomera have also been lost, “incomprehensible losses when the Canary Islands are in the tail wagon in terms of the ratio of physiotherapists per inhabitant in public services
of health if we compare the data with those of the rest of the public services of the other Spanish autonomous communities”.
