He president of the Works council of the Tasisa ambulances that cover the Canary Emergency Service (SUC) from Buenavista del Norte to Tacoronte (Lot 4), José Juan Arbelocomplaint that may take between three and four hours to leave a patient on a stretcher at the University Hospital of Canary Islands (HUC)due to the limitation of these resources and the high occupancy of said hospital center, which is mainly attended by citizens from the north of Tenerife and from La Laguna.
Arbelo, what is USE delegateremember that The problem has existed for several months and it’s going to get worse, so He does not understand that the HUC Management says that these are “specific” situations.
Sources of the aforementioned hospital of reference explain that, with the aim of alleviating the lack of stretchers detected in the Emergency Department due to an increase in the influx of patientsthe H.U.C. has acquired fifty new stretcherswhich is scheduled to arrive in February, due to the bidding process. The same sources comment that the winning company is going to begin sending part of this material.
In Arbelo’s opinion, in this hospital center they only put “patches”, since the key is that there is a lack of beds for patients in the Emergency area, which means that the hospital stretchers are not unoccupied and, in turn, they are also left the ambulances are busy. According to the union spokesperson, until recently the wait for ambulance workers in the northern area was between one and three hours, but now it is between three and four. And these queues also cause an accumulation of work and patients at Hospiten Bellevue, in Puerto de la Cruz, who wait to be referred to the HUC. For Arbelo, it is common for patients to wait two or three days, and exceptionally up to five, to be referred to the reference center.
Sick or injured
For the Tasisa Works Committee, those affected are people who are sick or have suffered accidents and the situation “is neither worthy nor good for their health.” But he clarifies that it is also not appropriate for ambulance workers to waste so much time in the hallway where triage is carried out at the Canary Islands University Hospital (HUC).
There have been occasions when, according to Arbelo, the personnel of a basic, sanitized or medicalized life support vehicle finish their shift, 12 or 24 hours, and must remain at their position for several more hours, since they cannot leave. to the patient.
He clarifies that, as happened last Tuesday, leaving the hospital was delayed for six hours. In the opinion of the workers’ representative, in these cases the minimum rest period between work days for employees is not being respected, which must be 12 hours for those who have shifts of the same length, or 72 hours for those who work 24 hours a day. followed.
Between Buenavista del Norte and Tacoronte, a total of eight basic life support ambulances are available 24 hours a day, two sanitized (one in Santa Úrsula and another in the Hospital del Norte-Icod) and one medicalized in Puerto de la Cruz. In addition, in Garachico there is another basic ambulance for 12 hours a day and in the National Park of Teide another is operational for about 13 hours. With these resources, a territory in which it is estimated that 250,000 people reside must be served.
Priority
Arbelo admits that, at a certain moment, the blocking of ambulances at the Hospital Universitario de Canarias (HUC) or at Hospiten Bellevue, for example, may lead to priority being given to some emergency services. emergencies to the detriment of others, which are considered not so serious.
Thus, for example, the so-called secondary referrals, that is, between Bellevue or a health center and the HUC, could be postponed, to the extent that the patients are supposedly already cared for or under the supervision of medical personnel.
Arbelo indicates that “ambulance workers are 100% professionals” and this was demonstrated during the covid-19 pandemic. «But we work for companies that are subcontractors of the Government of the Canary Islands and our salaries are low,” he clarifies.
Differences
Remember that, in the face of this situation, all staff at the Canarian Health Service (SCS) all of its incentives, which are recognized in its agreements, will be maintained for the third consecutive year.
The way ambulance workers who operate in the north of Tenerife resort to raising their salaries is to work overtime or self-cover, according to their spokesperson.
More than four years ago, according to the Works Council, ambulance staff had to have their salaries increased by two percent. However, to date they have not achieved this salary improvement and the matter is in the Courts, awaiting a ruling.
Of all the holidays that exist in a year, said personnel only obtain compensation for working on six of them, such as Thursday and Friday of Easter, December 24 and 25, as well as December 31 and January one. “The rest is neither paid nor compensated with days of rest,” says José Juan Arbelo.
It states that “we cannot be the only sector within the Administration of the Autonomous Community that is managed entirely by private companies.” And, from his point of view, “we are an essential service and we believe that we should be assumed by the Government of the Canary Islands.” In this way, the Executive could save the business benefit it brings to the concessionaires, “which is between 13 and 17 percent” of the budget.
The regional administration allocated some 150 million euros to the Canary Emergency Service in the latest tenders for the entire Archipelago, points out the president of the Tasisa Business Committee for the so-called Lot 4.
