Seville/Málaga, (EFE).- The CCOO, UGT and CSIF unions have once again starred this Thursday in a new day of protest in front of Andalusian health centers to demand a “negotiated solution to the situation” in primary care.
These unions, who are represented in the Health Sector Table, demand “global measures” that improve the situation of health centers and for professionals of all categories.
They demand a series of measures that go through an increase in the budget, salary improvements, increases in staff (which, to be real, must include 100% coverage of absences), incorporation of new professionals, reduction of patients per consultation and reinforcement of administrative personnel, among others.
The unions also demand the “immediate withdrawal” of the draft order that, according to their complaints, seeks to privatize Primary Care consultations, a project that “has not been negotiated with society or with the unions, since we were not even consulted about its content, and that it represents a true aberration that reveals the lack of capacity to generate solutions to the serious problem that the system has on the part of the Ministry of Health ”, they assert.
global solutions
“Such an important matter was processed in mid-August and was sneakily included in the order, since it only appears in a table that establishes an amount per query within a document of a total of 27 pages. And, although the Confederation of Businessmen of Andalusia and the Spanish Private Health Alliance were given a hearing, the unions were excluded”, denounce CCOO, UGT and CSIF.
They denounce that with this order, “surprisingly”, the Board “would pay much more” for these outsourced consultations than what a professional from the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) itself would charge.
According to the unions, a private company that saw 16 patients in one afternoon would charge a total of 1,040 euros, while a SAS doctor who attended these consultations, in the afternoon, would charge a total of 214.65 euros, which means paying for a service with a smaller number of patients, 484.50% more than if the same service were attended in public services.
They have demanded that the SAS sit down at the negotiating table to address global solutions to Primary Care, which go through “improving its financing and its organization and not through its privatization”, and they have warned that they cannot be given ” improvised solutions for a single profession of the many that provide services in our health centers”.
No privatization of healthcare
For his part, the Minister of Sustainability and spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, insisted this Thursday that the Executive “has never thought” to privatize primary care, and has assured that the socialist governments “allocated many more resources” to arrange with private health.
In statements to journalists in Torremolinos, where he has visited the landfill sealing works, Fernández-Pacheco has criticized the “partisan use” that, in his opinion, some public officials make of the mobilizations on public health.
Likewise, it has censored the “lies” and “the hoax policy in which the opposition parties have entered” regarding primary care, after the controversy broke out over the order prepared by the Government that updates the rates that are They pay subsidized centers for the various diagnostic tests.
“A lie repeated a thousand times does not become the truth,” said the counselor, who has described as “absolutely false” that the Junta de Andalucía is going to privatize primary care.
Greater weight than the one agreed with the PSOE
He has argued that the government of Juanma Moreno “if it has been characterized by something, it is just the opposite, year by year the amount that is allocated to concerts with private health will go down.”
And he has asserted that “the socialist governments allocated many more resources” than the current Executive dedicates to agreeing with private health.
Likewise, it has influenced the fact that the Andalusian Government allocates resources to “continue investing”, which is why “today in Andalusia there are more hospitals, health centers and health professionals than ever before”.
“What we do is protect ourselves against this uncontrolled waste that characterized the years of socialist government,” said Fernández-Pacheco, who reiterated that “nobody has ever thought or considered privatizing primary care in Andalusia.” EFE
