Valencia (EFE).- The “degradation” of Valencian public health and the “deficit” of physicians are some of the reasons why the Comunitat medical union (CESM CV) has decided to call a three-day strike by doctors ( March 6, April 3 and May 8) to make their discomfort visible and force the Department of Health to accept their demands.
Three months after the first strike notice, and after holding six meetings in which Health has presented various proposals that have been described by the union as “very generic”, “partial”, “unacceptable” or that show “contempt” towards the collective of doctors, both parties have accused each other of having broken the negotiations and the protest continues.
Three days of doctors’ strike
Although the strike was initially called for January 17 and 18, the “care overload” due to respiratory infections and their desire not to “contribute to the chaos” led the union to postpone the protest.
Medical personnel with statutory appointment (slightly more than 15,400 according to data from the Ministry of Health) or employment contract are called to strike, in the Primary and Hospital Care work centers, as well as in the Health Emergency Service-SAMU and optional labor personnel in training (MIR, FIR, BIR, PIR and QIR).
The call of the union, to which around seven thousand doctors are affiliated, covers all the public health sectors dependent on the Generalitat Valenciana, as well as in the Consortia of the General University Hospital of Valencia, and the Provincial Hospital of Castellón.
Minimum services
The minimum services established by the Ministry of Sustainable Economy in hospitals will be the services on Sundays in hospitalization rooms, central urgent services, emergency operating room or emergency door.
During this doctors’ strike, the usual day services will be maintained by the dialysis services, radiotherapy, transplant program, ICU and Resuscitation Unit, as well as the SAMU-CICU, the Health Care Points (PAS) and the Continuous Care Points of Primary (PAC).
In health centers and specialty centers, the services of a Saturday must be maintained, which are the “minimum necessary to meet the requirements of the population”, according to the resolution of the Ministry.
There will be services of 50% of the usual day in the hospital pharmacy services, scheduled operating rooms, oncology, home hospitalization unit and day hospital, 25% in preferential external consultations, and 50% in home care and in hospitals. transfusion to guarantee prompt health care.
From the union they indicate that some consultations or surgical interventions will have to be suspended due to the strike, although “there will not be many” because the minimum services established “are of such a caliber that from the point of view of impact, it will not be noticed.”
Main demands in the doctors’ strike
Although initially the union presented a list of 46 demands, in the different meetings they have held they have focused on a fortnight, specifically on aspects such as putting a cap on the number of patients in Primary Care consultations or including remuneration improvements in the on-call hours and members of difficult-to-cover services.
In the case of the number of patients, from the CESM CV they explain that Health has given them a figure but making an average using rural and urban areas, and while there are departments like Alcoi where a doctor has between 1,700 and 1,800 patients, in clinics like in Quatretondeta (Alicante) the average is 120 patients. “We do not want stockings, we want no doctor to have more than 1,500 assigned cards and not see more than 35 patients a day.”
Regarding the guards, the union affirms that Health has offered them as economic improvements “one and a half euros gross per hour on call. If that is not insulting us, may God come and see, it is to run away”, and they also criticize that they have been denied the possibility that doctors over 55 years of age stop doing 24-hour shifts
Displacements, diets…
They also claim that a family doctor should not be forced to travel with his means to care for a patient 10 or 15 kilometers from his office, sometimes late at night and alone, “regardless of his safety or if he has Own vehicle or simply driver’s license.
Another of his requests is that the SAMU doctors, who have 24-hour shifts, be paid their diet as is done with other groups, as well as the commitment that all SAMU units have a doctor in all their actions.