The problems that Cantabria is experiencing with the provision of the ambulance service do not seem to be getting better after the recent change in the contract for scheduled medical transport. In just 15 days since the new company has taken the reins, the various complaints from patients have brought to light situations as alarming as the last one that took place this week, when an elderly couple had to wait more than nine hours at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital in Santander to return to his home in Castro Urdiales after a chemotherapy session.
“We don’t come to the hospital for pleasure, we come because my wife is sick with cancer and, furthermore, we are older people, without the resources to take a taxi or a hotel to spend the night. “There is no right for us users of the Cantabrian Health Service to be treated like this,” denounced in a statement the 75-year-old man affected by this long wait that took place last Monday and in which both his wife – 74 years old – fell ill. – like him as a companion, they suffered for nine hours from the uncertainty of not knowing when they would return home.
From three in the afternoon until after midnight they were waiting for an ambulance to take them back to Castro Urdiales, about 75 kilometers away. “We are already used to the fact that some days we have to wait longer and other days less, we know perfectly well that it is not a taxi service or à la carte and that sometimes we have to wait up to two or three hours to be able to optimize trips, but “This takes the cake,” laments the affected person.
And if that were not enough, during that time, this couple had to endure the fact that two ambulances scheduled for two destinations near their town of residence did not accept their transfer. First one to Laredo, 24 kilometers from his house, but later, after eight in the afternoon, an ambulance with free seats went to Otañes, a district of the municipality of Castro Urdiales itself.
“When we had been waiting for more than five hours with my wife sitting in the wheelchair and exhausted after getting up early and the chemo session, an ambulance left for Otañes with two people. As there are plenty of places, we tell the driver to take advantage of the trip and drop us off in Castro, who picks him up on the way, which he refuses. We ask him to please call the company and tell us about it but he insists that he is only following orders and that he is not going to call anyone, that we continue waiting and that, if we want, we can file a complaint at the counter,” says the man. in his statement.
“At ten at night, already completely alone in the room and after more than seven hours waiting, they informed us that the hospital was going to close, and they transferred us from Valdecilla Sur, to the Emergency area, insisting that we should not be Let’s worry that at any moment they will come for us, which ends up happening at 12:17 a.m. at night, after more than nine hours of waiting. After one in the morning we arrived at our house in Castro Urdiales,” he continues.
“Anyone who has gone through chemotherapy or has a family member who has gone through it knows what it means to be in a wheelchair for nine hours after the session and getting up at six in the morning to go from Castro to the hospital in day,” laments the man, expressing his “sorrow” for the “lack of coordination or internal wars in the companies awarded the ambulance service” that translate into “hiccups and delays every now and then that the patients suffer.”
“Today it was our turn, but tomorrow there will be other patients who have to go through this, that is why my wife and I ask whoever corresponds (Castro and regional politicians, hospital directors…) not to look the other way. and that they take action on the matter, and I also ask the media to report on this situation to help us make the problem visible and hopefully solve it,” the statement concludes.
More cases
This is not an isolated case since the Valencian company Diavida took over from Ambuibérica on October 1 in the management of scheduled transportation. Another woman, speaking to elDiario.es, has reported that her 94-year-old mother had to wait more than 24 hours at the beginning of the month for her to be transferred by ambulance from the Reinosa Hospital to her home located just 10 kilometers away.
According to her story, at a quarter to six on a Friday she was assigned home admission at the Tres Mares Hospital after establishing a diagnosis of her illness, but it was not until 11 pm on Saturday when an ambulance took her back to her home. During that time, as he explains, they repeatedly asked for explanations: “All the nurses and doctors’ shifts told us that they had already requested the ambulance and that they had called again, but the ambulance did not appear,” he laments.
And finally it was an ambulance that, taking advantage of a transfer from the Sierrallana Hospital in Torrelavega to Reinosa, took care of this woman’s case. “If it doesn’t happen for that reason, we’re still there,” the daughter of the affected woman ironically highlights in statements to this medium, who also highlights the good disposition and apologies received from the service workers.
“We’re sorry, it’s not our fault,” they said, reminding him of the change in the winning company and recognizing that the situation they had suffered was a reason to make themselves known publicly. And according to union sources consulted by this newspaper, “the employees are the ones who are carrying out the work despite the difficulties of lack of personnel and problems with the computer system”, after a change in management that, as they recall, “It was carried out with an even lower contract than the previous one, when there were already numerous deficiencies in the service.”
parliamentary questions
Faced with this scenario, the Cantabrian PSOE has presented this week a battery of initiatives in the regional Parliament “to find out why the Government of Cantabria is not making the new company awarded the ambulance service comply with the terms of the contract.”
“It is regrettable, an abuse and a very serious lack of humanity to see how patients who are being treated with chemotherapy in Valdecilla have to wait up to 10 hours for an ambulance to take charge of their transfer to Castro Urdiales,” said the general secretary and parliamentary spokesperson. , Pablo Zuloaga, during a press conference in which he addressed the health situation in the community.
“It is not an isolated case, there are hundreds of complaints that come from patients who have to travel by ambulance and who see that with an essential public service like this, health transportation is being neglected. Since the new contractor arrived with an alarming drop, we see how there is a lack of professionals, how there is a lack of vehicles to provide the services and we see how the Government of Cantabria does nothing to demand that they comply,” he denounced, highlighting the “lack of humanity” of the regional president, María José Sáenz de Buruaga (PP), “with public services.”
The company awarded the scheduled medical transport has refused to evaluate these cases or make statements to questions from elDiario.es, while the Ministry of Health has recognized the problems and has warned of the possibility of establishing sanctions.
“We know the difficulties in managing medical transportation that the new company is generating. Failures and non-compliance will give rise to the respective files, but now the most important thing is to ensure that there are no failures and the situation is normalized. Our priority is to properly transfer the patients and secondarily to punish them, if possible,” they have stated from the department headed by César Pascual (PP).
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