Pamplona (EFE).- Representatives of the Department of Health of the Provincial Government and the Medical Union of Navarra (SMN) have held a brief, but “frank and clear” meeting on Thursday, in which no significant progress has been made, it has been reported the general director of Health, Carlos Artundo.
At the end of the meeting, Artundo told the media that a new meeting with the SMN is scheduled for this Friday, still unconfirmed, so “the roads are open” to reach an agreement to end the strike indefinite that began this Wednesday.
“The process has sped up a bit, because we don’t have much time left” of the legislature and because “the strike is not good for anyone, neither for professionals nor for the service or especially for the people,” said Artundo, who has asked to look more at the meeting points than at the disagreement points.
It is “essential” to raise salaries
In the remuneration aspect, he commented, on the part of the Government there is a “very interesting and very important” offer, since “for the first time we are talking about increasing the basic remuneration of doctors in Navarra.” Specifically, the Department offers a salary increase of 400 euros, while the SMN demands one of 500 euros per year for two years (1,000 in total).
Artundo has considered that the rise in wages “is essential”, it is “a good idea” and “an absolutely pertinent movement” at this time. “It makes perfect sense to improve the salaries of doctors, like other health professionals,” he added.
In any case, he has qualified, from the Administration “we are talking about what we can do now in the short term in this legislature”, because “what happens or is discussed in other legislatures, there we already have to be serious and responsible enough to not commit to something that we could not in any way guarantee.”
On the overload of work in Primary Care, he has opined that “there the agreement is easy” and “perfectly possible” with an offer of a maximum of 32 patients a day, 12 minutes per face-to-face consultation and to avoid super-added demand or ” forced”, except in certain cases of urgency or when it is accepted by the professional”.
Regarding the elimination of exclusivity, he has indicated that the Government of Navarra makes a “halfway” proposal based on “incompatibility”, which means that the doctor can work in the afternoon in a private activity that is not his own specialty of the optional
What is agreed with the SMN “goes to mass”
Artundo has preferred not to give more details about the negotiations, since “it is usually intelligent and prudent to do them with a certain respect for privacy”, he pointed out, after highlighting that “today is not the day to set limits or red lines, which in any negotiation there are them on all sides.”
The general director has stressed that what is agreed with the SMN “of course goes to mass”, but “another different thing is that obviously there are some channels and some legal, administrative procedures” and therefore the agreements have to go through the Table Sector and the General Health Board, which “have some powers and no one has to question them.”
After emphasizing that “we need a quick agreement”, Artundo declared: “I don’t even want to consider a no-agreement scenario because I think we would all lose and it doesn’t seem to me to be the most appropriate or intelligent thing to do.”
Regarding the Intersindical de Salud, which has called a strike starting on February 15, it has indicated that they have met with all the unions that form it in private and they will continue to meet with them “more quickly”, especially to treat the reinforcement package of Primary Care.
In relation to the monitoring of the strike this Thursday, he has stated that it “decreases a little, it is logical, it is the second day of the strike” and “the pattern is maintained” of more monitoring in Primary than in hospitals and less in the area Tudela and more in Estella and Pamplona.
For its part, the Medical Union of Navarra has decided to continue on strike after the latest proposals “insufficient and not very feasible in the short term” presented by the Department of Health.
After the meeting, the union indicated in a statement that the offer presented by the director of Health is “the one sent on January 30, with a worsening compared to the initial one despite the fact that they were already informed at the first meeting that it was insufficient ».
And they criticize that the counselor Santos Induráin “has not stopped repeating in the media that Health has an ‘outstretched hand’ but nevertheless that does not materialize in changes to the initial proposal”, for which they are committed to “continue negotiating in the current framework of collective conflict in hopes of reaching a feasible and satisfactory agreement for the medical community as soon as possible.
“None of us want the current scenario, however, throughout his term there has not been a predisposition to really improve both the working and remuneration conditions of the medical community,” they affirm and put as proof of this “the breach of the agreement signed” between Health and the SMN in December 2019 and that now “for the second time they present the same proposal as in the first meeting, rejected by the medical community”,
For the union, “instead of a true negotiation, what they ask of the doctors is a quick, verbal agreement and in which the real improvements occur in a future that neither the counselor nor the director no longer have. General, nor the managing director because the end of the current legislature is near.
An “insufficient” salary increase
In this sense, they specify that the salary of 400 euros per month offered “is not only insufficient, but the system chosen to carry it out is complex and does not guarantee that all doctors receive the same amount”, an option that also requires “parliamentary procedures that do not it is certain that they can do in the time that is left» and a «support that they do not currently have».
It also states that this salary increase “is linked to the fulfillment of totally non-specific objectives”, which “will allow managers to stop paying it whenever they want, citing non-compliance with them”.
In relation to exclusivity, the SMN maintains that the situation is “totally discriminatory with respect to the rest of doctors in Spain” since in this last proposal Health “has taken a step back, worsening the initial offer” and does not “propose something not contemplated nor requested”, an “incompatibility that continues to prevent doctors from practicing their profession outside the Administration”.
In the same way, they point out that the latest proposals to reduce work overload “are even worse than those already signed in the December 2019 agreement” and “a real toast to the sun” that Salud intends for Navarrese society to see as progress “when In reality, it does not take any real measures to improve attendance and reduce waiting lists.
The Intersindical de Salud also calls a strike
The Health inter-union, made up of ELA, LAB, UGT, SAE and CCOO, has called a strike on February 15 for all workers of the Navarro Health Service-Osasunbidea to improve their “working conditions”, a mobilization independent of the one they have out doctors since February 1.
As the spokespersons for the strike committee, Iván Irisarri and Begoña Ruiz, have indicated in statements to the media, it has been a proposal open to all unions, but Satse and the Medical Union did not accept, and Afapna left yesterday. “The spirit is to work for all Osasunbidea workers,” they added.
This is a call for a strike independent of the one being carried out by the Medical Union since this Wednesday. The Minister of Health, Santos Induráin, explained at a press conference that the Government has convened the sectoral table and the general table in which these unions are found, but the conveners consider it insufficient.
Direct dialogue with the Department
«We want to have direct dialogue with the department, as others have had. Let’s hope that before going on strike they sit down to negotiate seriously and avoid a strike. We are open to negotiations and we do not want the last day to arrive and wait to see what happens,” Ruiz explained.
Regarding the specific demands, they have indicated that they must “agree on them with all the union forces”, but in any case they are aimed at improving working conditions. “There may be economic conditions, but they would go to the improvement of working conditions,” said Irisarri.
The unions have called a concentration on February 10 and will start the strike on the 15th, which, in principle, will be one day, but they are open to all scenarios.