The Generalitat of Catalonia is about to resolve what will be the largest public contest of the legislature: the management service urgent and non-urgent sanitary transport. To this megacontract of 2,400 millionwhich has been divided into 10 lots, with 12 companies opting. The ambulance tender will approve the budget for the period 2025-2030 if multinationals, family companies and local companies have presented it.
Precisely, the conditions of the previous contests, present the past decade and which has been covered for decades, They have traditionally faced large business groups with smaller companies, which regret the difficulties in accessing the competition.. From the Government, it has been approved that many have been articulated in the process, among which it is worth prioritizing the quality of the service over the economic offer, in addition to reducing the contract to five years, the importance of the one that was established ends ara.
In addition, in order to limit the concentration of awards, companies will only be able to obtain three lots per operation. Tot i això, the unions and the representatives of the workers reject the proposal, while there is no progress in the internalizing the service and equipping the working conditions of the workforce to that of the employees of the Medical Emergency System (SEM).
Just after the recent regional elections to the Parliament of Catalonia, the passat maig, the Catalan Contract Court of the Public Service, will suspend the tender of the ambulance management service, following a challenge from the Catalan Employers’ Association. Ambulàncies (ACEA). The employers argued that the budget, exceeding 2,000 million “was insufficient and caused losses”, in addition to highlighting other erroneous calculations, such as the speeds of the vehicles, the price of the bases or the shortfalls in the purchase of the fleets. ACEA affirms that “the conditions are not supported in the objective report.”
The Save the Ambulàncies Platform denounces that more than 90% of the 1,300 ambulances in Catalonia are in private homes
In canvi, the Save Ambulàncies Platform The focus is on the need to advance the law proposal on the internalization of health transport. The collective remembers that of the more than 1,300 ambulances in Catalonia, more than 90% are managed by multinationals and private companies that, with the subcontracting of service by the Generalitat, “have a priority in the business of a service essential”.
Taxation of contracts
Save the Ambulàncies denounce the regrettable status of the vehicles, the obsolescence of the materials, the incompliments in terms of training and the job insecurity of the 5,000 professionals in the sector. Així, warns about “a deficient assistance management and a null·la inspection of bankruptcy incompliments”, which leads the awarding companies to be unable to offer a quality service. In the absence of the publication of the tender contract, the entity raises the importance that “the public resources allocated should be used to guarantee quality health transportation and that such a high budgetary allocation would have to be correctly fiscalized.”
In the previous legislature, Save the Ambulàncies and representatives of the CGT Catalunya union were going to present the reality of the sector to the deputies of the Parliament of Catalonia. One of the most illustrative facts is the comparative difference that exists between 10% of public vehicles and the remaining 90% private. For this reason, argue that “The shortest way to equalize the working conditions of professionals is the internalization of the service.“In this case, they specify that the Generalitat, in recent decades, has not been able to reverse the mismanagement of the firm contractors, which has ended up affecting the return service to users.
It is proposed that the Government, through CatSalut, assumes the management of the totality of the service.
One of the solutions that is proposed is that the Government, through CatSalut, assumes the management of the entire urgent and non-urgent transport service, in addition to the staff. To guarantee, make sure that “if we have a public fire department, if we have a public Mossos d’esquadra, why not we also have a sanitary transport, in the six urgent and non-urgent modes, which are also public ?”
Essential public service
The union CGT Catalunya assenyala that after a sectoral negotiation process of over a decade, which has ended with a consensus between the employers and their representatives, it is necessary to reinforce the mechanisms of wage and labor equality, which will be left out of the previous Budgets of the Generalitat. For this reason, it urges “to solve the lack of political will with the recovery of essential public services in the sense that it serves the interests of private companies or the internalization of the material as it is returned to the initial law proposal.”
Precisely, this time a meeting is planned between the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, and members of the business committee of 112 of Reus and the Free Zone, the emergency telephone number, to address the internalization of the service. In more than two years, the PSC mateix, the part that governs the Generalitat, will present a parliamentary proposal for a resolution to internalize 112 in terms of the shortest possible time.
To Catalonia, 112 is a private service in which employees are registered under the telemarketing agreement.. Furthermore, the workers at the Reus centers and the Free Trade Zone wear a badge in protest against the working conditions. The representatives of the workforce commented that “the goal of dispensing with the intermediary company is an obligation for the administration and to put an end to the desire for profit in emergencies that causes the lack of contracting of sufficient workers.”
In both cases, the actors involved reaffirm that public management and the possibility of having a specific agreement are guarantees of quality emergencies. The objective is to guarantee excellence in healthcare quality.
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