There are Madrid residents who have not been able to schedule in-person appointments or obtain prescriptions from their family doctor for more than 24 hours. The collapse of the computer system that supplies the region, AP-Madrid, persists a day later. The server continues to slow down or, sometimes, blocked, which prevents the normal course of activity in the health centers. The Digitalization Department of the Community of Madrid, responsible for this computer network, has been trying to unblock the situation since early Monday morning, when they sent an email to several departments or health professionals to warn of the problem. At noon a second email arrived and, some time after this setback was notified, both clinics and pharmacies are experiencing unusual hours.
This same Tuesday in a pharmacy in Vistalegre, Carabanchel district, a customer was arguing with the woman who was serving at the counter. The origin of the fight was a medication that the latter refused to give him without a prescription. “If you’re not convinced, go back to the doctor and ask them to put it in writing. “I can’t do anything like this,” Ana, the pharmacist, told him. The woman, middle-aged and accompanied by another young woman, blurted out that she “didn’t know how difficult it was to do that,” referring to the fact that she could have a good time until she was treated again at her health center. “I’m sick and it hurts a lot, every trip [al centro] “It makes me more tired,” he says. The closest to the area is General Ricardos, which on conventional days is usually full early in the morning and does not respond to telephone queries.
Go back to the doctor and ask them to put it in writing. “I can’t do anything like this,” a pharmacist explains to her client this Tuesday.
After the brawl, Ana comments that no patients have yet reached her with handwritten prescriptions. This is what CCOO health sources indicate that doctors are testing, who cannot always issue them electronically due to failures in the system. If they did so, the worker continues, they would have “no problem accepting them,” given that these authorizations on blue-colored paper are the ones they have used “all their lives.” However, he says that there are those who gave up at the first attempt when faced with the ‘no’ from their clinic and went without a prescription. This pharmacist explains that in the sector they have another server of their own, which has been working normally except in the early hours of this Tuesday, when they could not access any history.
From the Community of Madrid, which has rarely experienced episodes like this so extended over time, they ask for patience and maintain that the system already works, just at a slow pace. “Healthcare professionals can work with the AP-Madrid application, and alternatives have been sought for the functions that were causing problems within the app itself,” they conclude in Digitalization, which coordinates with specialists and the Ministry of Health to monitor the evolution of the server. At the moment, they have not explained what those alternatives are.
The Workers’ Commissions also follow the situation, and tell Somos Madrid that doctors “can now attend and work, but many still cannot see any procedure in the system.” The union alludes to the fact that one of the main problems is sick leave or disability, since if someone must start, renew or conclude one to rejoin, they cannot notify their company of the discharge, and this in extreme cases can lead to retaliation. .
“The workers tell us that the system constantly expels them and they cannot access the medical records,” they add from CCOO. “In the end, they end up doing each procedure manually and including it in a list, because they do not trust that when operations resume they will appear automatically. So we will have to chop them one by one.” And they emphasize: “They do it motu propriobecause if not who knows what would happen.”
On the other hand, there are those who contradict the official version of the regional government. This Monday, when according to the Community the problems broke out, an email was sent to the health workers or organizations attached to the Madrid system to inform them of the breakdown in the system. In the first of these emails, sent at 9:23, reference is already made to Friday as the first day of failures, and not this Monday. At noon, as the conflict persisted, the computer system was paralyzed and a control email was notified.
That same day, the unions reported that the problem extended to practically all areas: from the delivery of analyzes already carried out or the on-screen notices for entry and exit shifts at the window. The culmination was the difficulties in prescribing treatments. Mónica, the 28-year-old girl who this Monday told Somos Madrid about her experience at a health center in Lavapiés where she went for dizziness, tried again this morning. This time he was successful and they dismissed him, although he does not know how they will get it to his company. “Right now it seems like the system is going wrong, but it works,” he declares.
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