Cristina is 31 weeks pregnant. Three years ago she was supposed to start her childbirth preparation classes in Jaén. The same day that the private insurers’ sit-in on the Muface tender became known, he received a call from the clinic where he planned to start the course: “They told me that it was canceled because it was going to close.” The woman then began a journey to guarantee the benefit that, after dozens of calls, answering machines and unanswered emails, she ended up abandoning in resignation. “It made me anxious and, in my situation, now is not the time,” he laments.
Initially, Cristina contacted Muface, who referred her to their insurer. She had chosen DKV, which currently serves around 200,000 beneficiaries, but the company’s office in Jaén did not provide her with any solution. “They told me that they were a commercial establishment and that I had to talk to Granada, which was where the agreement was signed. They gave me several telephone numbers and after calling eight or nine numbers, they told me that there was no midwife in my city and that the closest one was in Córdoba, but in my situation I cannot be taking the car,” he explains in conversation with elDiario. is.
This official filed a complaint, in which she explains that the midwife who used to attend to her “told her that she had found another space to take childbirth preparation classes, but DKV denied her hiring.” Company sources indicate to this editorial team that if there is no private healthcare alternative, the mutual member can go to a public service. In addition, they point out that they have reinforced the service in the branches and in the call center to meet the increase in demand in the face of uncertainty, which is estimated at 160% more. “Frequent traffic in 2024 has grown by 10.5%, which will make the accident rate even worse,” they indicate.
Cristina’s is one of the “multitude of complaints” that the Independent Trade Union Center and Civil Servants (CSIF), of which she is a delegate, has received through a mailbox enabled to find out the current situation of the hundreds of thousands of mutual members. pending the crisis that has opened in recent weeks, and which they have already transferred to the Ombudsman and the parliamentary groups. Mercedes, a 41-year-old civil servant who lives in Cee, a Galician municipality of almost 8,000 inhabitants, opted for private insurance because the public hospital does not have a speech therapy service, which she regularly uses. However, he indicates that “before the summer there were already a couple of consultations from other specialties where they told me that they were no longer taking new patients,” so he had to make an appointment at another of those offered in the catalog.
Sector sources assure that assistance will continue to be provided normally until January 31, when the current concert ends if there is no agreement with the Public Service. However, both the unions and mutualists with whom this editorial team has been able to speak show their concern about the drift of Muface and what situation they will be in on that date or even at this moment. “I see my rights abolished, as I am being deprived of health care services during pregnancy,” says Cristina, who assures that on January 1 she will request the change to public health. “I think it is the only one that can give me the security right now that I am going to fulfill everything scheduled until my delivery,” he clarifies.
Mutual officials can choose, each January, the provider they want to offer them health care that year or opt for public health care. A large majority, around 70%, today opt for the private sector, but the trend is decreasing. In fact, two out of every three new public employees opt for social security.
“Right now we think that there is going to be a shift towards public health, because we are feeling hostage to some insurance companies that all they want is to make money from our thing,” explains Isabel Galvín, who is spokesperson for the Education Federation—one of the groups with the most mutual members—from CCOO in Madrid, which is also a user of social security. Furthermore, “younger users who join the opposition prefer the public system.”
From this union federation, they have been encouraging the choice of public health for more than a decade, a strategy that has intensified after the pandemic. “We had many cases in which the insurers did not answer the phone and the vaccination was more agile in the public,” says Galvín. Along the same lines, he points out that “it is very common to request a change when situations of serious chronic illness, a complex operation or even a sudden cardiovascular accident occur.”
Galvín gives more examples. “When a mutual member has a coronary accident or a heart attack on the street, the public hospital is the first person to care for you. Then the refund is processed, but for now the public saves your life.” Or the cases in which public centers are the vanguard. “We have reference hospitals in Madrid, doing very cutting-edge treatments, especially in breast cancer,” he indicates, as a spokesperson for a group, the teacher, who is very feminized.
The unions have intensified actions this week to demand an understanding between insurers and the Government, which allows the current system to continue from 2025. The Minister of Public Function, Óscar López, has confirmed that a new tender would be published before end of the year and has sent messages of “calm” to the beneficiaries. This department had opened a consultation process for the companies to justify under what conditions they would be willing to provide the service. However, Muface’s final report points out that their response “does not provide the evidence of costs that make up the total premium.”
One of the high points of the protests will predictably occur this Saturday. CSIF has called a demonstration, supported by the police unions Jupol and Jucil, in front of the Mufaca headquarters in Madrid “in defense of the model.” “The protests will continue over time if the Government continues without reacting and without guaranteeing the continuity of the Muface model with quality healthcare,” they highlight from this organization, which does not rule out “strikes in the Administration.”
While the conflict is resolved, Cristina has resigned herself. “I am a newbie and there is a lot of information that escapes my control. The classes were going to prepare me for a very important moment, but I won’t have them. I’m not going to fight anymore because it makes me anxious and now is not the time. I have assumed that I am not going to have it and maybe when I have time I will give it a look again,” he says, without giving up taking legal action for a right that has been taken away from him.
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