Pamplona/Barañáin (EFE) In it, it maintains the offer of an average salary increase through the destination complement of 400 euros per month for 14 payments, reduces the work overload and eliminates exclusivity but not incompatibility.
As indicated at a press conference by the Director General of Health, Carlos Artundo, the Government wants to achieve the maximum professional, union and social agreement with this package of measures that will be discussed tomorrow with the union strike committee. It is an offer that is joined by other urgent measures to improve Primary Care from which not only doctors will benefit.
“It is a powerful and ambitious offer, with a significant budgetary impact but necessary and relevant” to recognize the effort of professionals, the importance of strengthening the system, improving working conditions. In this way, it is about making the community more attractive and with it the attention to the citizen, Artundo said, but he has also warned of the “rush” of time because there are measures that require the approval of the General Table or Parliament and the legislature finish soon.
In terms of remuneration, he has commented that he proposes to raise the basic ones to improve because in a comparison with other Autonomous Communities, Navarrese physicians “are at a disadvantage” when they are “a scarce asset at the moment, an asset highly valued by society and with a long and costly process to train, so we cannot afford to be in a non-competitive situation in the future”, but improving it is “fair, necessary and pertinent”.
Improvement of remuneration in public health
And in this regard, the manager of the SNS-O, Gregorio Achútegui, has pointed out that in year 0 of a specialist, according to data from 2021, Navarra ranks 14th in remuneration and with the Health offer, hospital specialists and the 3 Primary Care physicians.
In relation to the payment of guards, he added that Navarra occupies a medium position, being also mandatory. With the proposed 10% increase, they would be at the top of the ranking if other CCAAs did not improve this ratio.
Lastly, regarding the tutoring of MIR residents, he commented that it is not very relevant economically, a little over a thousand euros per year, but it is for the training of specialists. Hence the 20% rise, “symbolic” but which recognizes a “necessary function”.
Artundo has also justified suppressing the exclusivity despite union, political and social opposition, since it only affects 41 professionals. In addition, only two communities maintain the mandatory exclusive dedication and it is an “appropriate” measure in a situation of shortage of physicians to “not have barriers that could reduce the ability to attract or retain” doctors.
Exclusivity is removed but incompatibility remains
However, he has stressed that the incompatibility will continue and thus, while now doctors can only carry out teaching, research and administration of family assets, if this proposal is accepted they will be able to carry out “any private activity except the one they carry out in the public sector . It is “a partial release halfway while the situation in other communities and countries is rigorously evaluated,” he specified.
Finally, in relation to work overload, Salud offers to reinforce Primary Care doctors in both family medicine and pediatrics with professionals from Navarre who want to come. Also, with people of retirement age who want to continue and with job offers to all the MIR who finish their training now.
In addition, it reduces their daily care and gives them the maximum amount of State time, and other jobs such as nursing professionals, physiotherapists, TCAEs and administrators are reinforced, to which OPE replacement and stabilization positions are added.
To conclude, Artundo has assured that Health will do everything necessary for all the measures to be approved, but the guarantees “are conditioned on the cancellation of the strike and the commitment of the SMN to collaborate in improving the service.”
“It is an opportunity to achieve concrete improvements” in the employment situation and in Primary Care, he stressed, and called on the SMN to agree to achieve “concrete progress”, a challenge for which he has also appealed to the rest of unions and actors .
Shortly before the Government made this counter-offer public, the Medical Union of Navarra has reiterated at a press conference at its headquarters in Barañáin the situation “of frank despair” which, in its opinion, justifies the call for a strike proposed for this Wednesday in public health , after ruling out as not being “neither immediate nor sufficient” the measures offered last Friday by the regional government.
The general secretary of the SMN, Alberto Pérez, has reiterated his four main demands. The first is a salary increase of 500 euros per month in 14 annual payments for 2023 and the same for 2024. All this seeks to place the salary of Navarrese doctors “in the van of average salaries” in Spain, and motivate new doctors at least do not rule out coming to Navarra from the start.
The second demand is the elimination of the exclusivity of professional practice in private healthcare, a blockade that only Navarra and Asturias maintain, and which they also understand makes the Autonomous Community less attractive as a professional destination.
The third demand is that the consultations of each doctor be blocked “so that they cannot be forced without the knowledge” of the doctor, while the fourth is to repeal a provision of the General Budget Law of Navarra that, after obtaining a place in Navarre health requires you to stay in it for at least two years before you can request a leave of absence.
Four measures to improve the conditions of Navarrese doctors in public health
Pérez has stressed that these four points are elements that differentiate Navarra from other Autonomous Communities and make it less attractive as a professional destination for doctors, which aggravates the situation in a context of shortage of professionals, which forces Navarre physicians to “work like donkeys”
Thus, he has denied that salary supplements, labor and other payments are privileged, since “officially we are paid a piece of money because we are doubling and tripling days”, he lamented to emphasize that what they really want is “an adequate working day with a fair wage”.
Nor do they need to expand the workforce, he said to point out that what is necessary is to fill the vacancies in existing positions, something increasingly difficult with the unattractive conditions in Navarra, he said.
Dealing with work overload, “essential” for the SMN
For his part, his colleague Jesús Soria has stressed that another of the points of his claims is the reference to occupational risks and elimination of work overload and psychosocial affectation that the day-to-day of doctors in Navarra entails due to the lack of personnel , something that is “essential to attend to so that the indefinite strike is called off” that they have called.
He has alluded to the verification of this problem of “overload” that the Department of Health itself collected in a report already in 2014, and that it has not been undertaken despite the fact that the SMN filed a complaint with the Labor Inspectorate, for which reason it has been resubmitted a new complaint this past December, as well as a complaint before the Ombudsman of Navarra.
“Allowing work overload in the medical community is a breach of the law, but it also prevents proper professional practice, increases medical errors and prevents meeting the demands of the Navarrese population,” he warned.
With all this, Juan Ramón Sanchiz has encouraged the population to join the concentration called for tomorrow before the Provincial Parliament, he said after regretting that “we have never worked so hard and had our patients so discontented.”
