weaver shell
Valencia (EFE) , where they practiced for a period of their lives, and of the Administration after affirming that they have known “a much better public health” than the current one.
They are the doctors Fernando Carbonell, promoter and president of the Association of Senior Doctors Hospital La Fe (AMESFE), and Daniel Luna, secretary of the entity, who in an interview with EFE claim the figure of the “responsible doctor”, the one who offers the patient Comprehensive, human care with continuity in follow-up.
They studied Medicine together and did their MIR residency in 1977 at the old Hospital La Fe de Campanar, Luna in the specialty of cardiovascular surgery and Carbonell in general and digestive surgery. Although both are 73 years old, the first is already retired and the second continues to work in a private hospital.
Origin of the association
Carbonell explains that “it was necessary” to create this entity because, he says, it is a “great disappointment” that in a hospital like La Fe, where he has worked for 42 years and has trained more than 60% of the doctors in the Community Valencian, “the day after turning 65 they tell you: get out.”
“Doctors who are absolutely fine, have a very clear mind and tremendous experience, after retiring they disappear and you never see them again,” laments Carbonell, who stresses that the Association they have promoted is the first of these characteristics to be launched. in the Community.
In his opinion, public health should “take advantage of the accumulated experience of years in many subjects” of physicians, not only to give an opinion on health problems but to contribute all the baggage accumulated over decades in different medical specialties.
In fact, there are already close to 300 physicians who have been interested in joining the entity, doctors over 65 years of age, some active and others retired; the only requirement to enter is that they have carried out part of their work activity in La Fe de València.
Senior physicians want to feel heard
Carbonell points out that he wants the hospital to “recognize” their work, what they have done, to feel heard because they have “provided extraordinary value that no one else”, he says, recognizes them, and also demands that they be treated as they deserve: “Faith is my hospital, my home, and if I come home sick I want them to treat me well.”
And it is that his generation of doctors “has made what La Fe hospital is. If we count the days on duty, I have counted the five years of my life that I have spent locked up in the hospital,” he warns.
“We have an opinion and we could propose solutions, which would probably be feasible. There are many contributions that we could make but it turns out that we are older, old, and society separates us, ”criticizes Fernando Carbonell.
Another better public health
The first objective of the Statutes of the new entity is the defense of public health, and when asked how they see the current health situation, they affirm that they have known “another much better public health”.
Given this, they claim the figure of the “responsible doctor”, a doctor who sees the patient, diagnoses him, indicates the treatment or surgery that he needs and assists him in the postoperative period, and “not telematically, which is how – he warns – gives us the impression that health now works ».
«I touch the patient and listen to him», affirms Carbonell, who indicates: «We have not been able to transmit that to the new generations in this society in which we live up to date and quickly. We are men of our time, but there are things that should return ».
In his opinion, the different governments that have been in charge of Valencian health should have “fallen ashamed” for having forced doctors to retire at 65 and, some time later, offer them incentives to continue exercising.
They also criticize how the specialties are planned and the fact that it is not scheduled at the time to take out the positions for internal resident physicians (MIR), and they consider that the current public health system is “paying for the mistakes” that have been made for years, which is making private insurance grow by up to 30%, says Luna.
Asked about the upcoming strike announced by the CESM medical union in the Valencian Community, they consider it “a political problem right now, in view of the elections, and because for many years, with the PP and the Botànic, there have been jobs that are not They have been put out to tender and now they have been put out but they are not awarded.
Your proposals
They assure that from the Association they want to “force” the Health Administration to have treatment and care protocols that favor home hospitalization units, which are the continuation of treatment in the hospital. “We are concerned that the elderly in this society are separated, thrown into the street,” they warn.
To reduce the waiting lists for a surgical intervention, which they recognize is “a complex problem”, they advise indicating the surgery well and doing what they call “peonadas” in the afternoons, performing operations in private or semi-private hospitals.
In the case of the flight of doctors abroad, they affirm that they do so for an “economic problem” since in Spain the increase in salaries has been “very small” and in other countries “they are received with open arms and paid double or triple. EFE