The Cesm union will call a strike if the regional government does not increase investment and the staff of health centers
Primary Care doctors have said enough, and are preparing to go on strike if the regional government does not provide solutions “to the already unsustainable deficits” suffered by the system. Several hundred physicians packed the assembly hall of the College of Physicians this Thursday, in an assembly in which the unity of the entire profession was staged in the face of a situation that they consider untenable.
The College’s appeal was attended by the Medical Union (Cesm), the three scientific societies that represent the Primary School and the medical coordinators of the health centers, which already last year stood up with a harsh manifesto in which they demanded solutions to the saturation of the system. They all agreed on a schedule of mobilizations that begins with concentrations in front of the health centers every Thursday, to converge in a demonstration through the streets of Murcia, probably in December. «As in Madrid, we hope that patients and all of society will join in; it is the health of all”, stressed the president of Cesm, María José Campillo. In addition, on the table is also the call for a strike in January.
The president of Cesm, María José Campillo, warned that “140 family doctors and 15 more paediatricians are urgently needed” to deal with the staff deficit. “Agendas must be limited, because time is needed to attend to patients, positions that are difficult to fill must be encouraged, and a new Emergency and Emergency Plan must be drawn up, with a fourth SUAP for Murcia and a second for Lorca” , listed. “We need many things, but above all, for the regional government to be sensitive to health, something that has not happened so far,” she summarized.
With the preparation of the Community budgets for 2023, this moment is key, and for this reason the doctors have decided to launch an order: either there are substantial improvements or there will be a strike. The president of the College, Francisco Miralles, regretted that this entire legislature has been a succession of “unfulfilled commitments.”
Under the slogan ‘Now is our moment’, the doctors launched a manifesto in which they warned that Primary Care “is one of the basic pillars for the proper functioning of health” and, nevertheless, it is being the protagonist “of the abandonment and the lack of support from the administrations”. There is a “lack of funding, a shortage of doctors, precarious contracts, a lack of resources.” All these chronic deficits are “already unsustainable” after the pandemic, and it is impossible to offer primary health care despite the enormous effort of its professionals, who have managed to keep care on its feet.”
«Primary Care doctors are those who know the patients and their environment. Those of us who accompany them from their birth to their death; to those who tell their concerns and fears; those of us who listen to them beyond the disease”, emphasize the professionals. But in order to continue maintaining “quality care and not quantity, according to their real health needs, guaranteeing their safety” and accessibility, “in-depth changes in organizational, structural and budgetary aspects” are necessary.
In this sense, the doctors urgently demand “an independent and finalist investment” for Primary, “that progressively reaches 25% of the budget allocated to Health.” They also demand “stable and defined contracts”, as well as an increase in the workforce “through the creation of all the necessary positions”. The objective, they recall, should be to set maximum quotas of 1,250 patients per family doctor and 900 per pediatrician. The regional government committed itself to reaching these ratios in 2007, recalled the president of the College of Physicians, Francisco Miralles. Since then, that deal “remains on hold.”
The manifesto also includes the need to guarantee substitutions to avoid the collapse of health centers and clinics during vacation times, or when several casualties accumulate. Likewise, the reduction of the bureaucratic burden “not related to assistance” is raised again. Faced with the attacks, the professionals demand “security systems in all the centers”, and to build the Primary School of the future, “promote teaching and research”, with a gradual increase in MIR places. In addition, the first level of care must regain prominence in the Managements, they warn. To do this, they propose creating a Primary Medical Director in all areas, and equating the figure of the Primary Care team to the head of the hospital service.
Primary Care emerges from the saturated pandemic, and with chronic problems that the Covid health crisis has entrenched and aggravated. The unrest has been increasing. A year ago now, the ‘white tide’ began to mobilize in the Region of Murcia, with concentrations at the doors of health centers and the launch of a manifesto in defense of Primary Care in which more funds and staff were claimed for the first level of care. In May, 77 of the 86 coordinators of the Region’s health centers stood up to another manifesto in which they warned that the shortage of professionals “endangers the normality” of health care. They requested a final budget and a debureaucratization of the consultations, among other measures that they described as urgent. But the sensation has been of little progress, and the coordinators returned to the charge after the summer denouncing the “discomfort, dissatisfaction and mistrust” among the professionals due to the lack of responses.
In recent weeks, the conflict in health has lit like a fuse, thanks to the massive demonstration in Madrid last Sunday. The out-of-hospital emergency doctors in this community are on strike, and next week their Primary classmates will join. Family doctors have also gone on strike in Cantabria, although the strike has been postponed pending the outcome of the ongoing negotiations. Also in other communities, such as Aragón, the possibility of a strike is on the table. “This profession is sick and tired. Vocation is not an excuse for mistreating professionals,” warned this week the president of the National Confederation of Medical Unions (Cesm), Tomás Toranzo.
In the Region of Murcia, the regional government tries to avoid an open conflict like the one in Madrid. Both the president of the Community, Fernando López Miras, and the Minister of Health, Juan José Pedreño, have promised that there will be an increase in the funds allocated to Primary and an increase in the number of places. All this, however, will have to be specified in the Community budgets for 2023, which will arrive shortly at the Regional Assembly.
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