The Diavida works council, the new contractor for scheduled ambulance transport in Cantabria since the beginning of October, has asked the Labor Inspection to check the facilities of its three operational bases in the autonomous community in light of the deficiencies they have reported: from the lack of changing rooms, lockers and showers for workers to the lack of interior lighting in work spaces, among other deficiencies, which include the shortage of vehicles to cover the service entrusted to them by the Service. Health Cantabrian.
As elDiario.es has been able to confirm, Diavida has three bases in Cantabria from which the ambulances that are responsible for transporting patients operate. They are transports for hospital discharges or for carrying out medical tests, for the most part, which do not require urgency, but which are currently causing many complaints due to the long waits to return home due to the precarious means with which the service is provided. service.
The Cantabrian Health Service divided into two the ambulance contract that until a few months ago Ambuibérica served as a whole. This company continues to be the winner of urgent transport and Diavida has taken charge of non-urgent, or scheduled, transport, in an award by the Government of Cantabria that is controversial due to its low price, which would make it “technically unviable”, according to the unions. In this way, the Valencian company Diavida took over from Ambuibérica on October 1 in the management of scheduled transportation and from the first moment complaints about waiting times began to accumulate.
Despite the response of the Minister of Health, César Pascual (PP), who in Parliament reported that the claims were not only reduced, but were already below those of the previous successful bidder, the truth is that patient waits they continue to lengthen. In fact, currently, and for all of Cantabria, there is only one ambulance operational at night, in charge of transporting anyone who has been discharged or has undergone a diagnostic test in a hospital. Likewise, one technician usually travels in the units, instead of two, which is what is stated in the contract specifications, and the ambulances travel loaded with patients.
Payrolls and working conditions
The problems for Diavida increase as the weeks progress. There are already workers’ assemblies and complaints about non-payment of the first payroll, as reported by UGT. The last deadline given by the company, this Tuesday, has been missed. The UGT-Public Services Federation therefore filed a claim with the Body for Extrajudicial Resolution of Labor Conflicts (ORECLA) for the non-payment of the first payroll to its 136 workers.
The two applicable collective agreements stipulate the payment of salaries in arrears either on the last business day or at the latest on the first five or three days of the following month, “which the company has not yet done as of the date of Thursday”.
The last milestone is the working conditions, which has led the works council to request an inspection. When the works council was consulted, it confirmed having requested the intervention of the Labor Inspection due to the conditions under which they are working. This medium has confirmed from other sources that there are deficiencies in the bases of Laredo, Torrelavega, Santander and Reinosa with a lack of furniture and showers and, in some cases, without interior lighting.
DANA and uptick in complaints
The company has not responded to the questions sent from elDiario.es about the complaints and complaints from its staff, but the Minister of Health, César Pascual (PP), publicly acknowledged this Monday that they have detected an uptick in user complaints. Likewise, he has covered up the company by stating that the catastrophic DANA in Valencia has destroyed 50% of its infrastructure. The Ministry, in any case, will take action on the matter if the Diavida company does not put an end to the claims, although for now it remains waiting for the labor conflict it is maintaining due to non-payment of payroll.
“There are still incidents and they have picked up a little. It’s not chaos, but they have come back. There were problems with medical transportation, but they were solved. Now we know, because professionals and companies have told us, that they have a delicate situation due to DANA,” Pascual declared during the press conference in which he presented his department’s budgets.
The Health Minister added that he hopes to know “the company’s alternatives, since they have lost 50% of the infrastructure in Valencia.” He has referred, in this sense, to whether Diavida is capable of overcoming the company’s crisis with the help provided by the national and Valencian executives, although, “if it is not capable of providing the service, other decisions will have to be made.”
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