Weaver Shell | Valencia (EFE).- The Ministry of Health has started the “rescue” of family doctors and paediatricians who are of retirement age to offer them access to active retirement, working full-time or part-time and offering them economic incentives, with the objective of “promoting Primary Care”.
This is confirmed by the Minister of Health, Miguel Mínguez, who in an interview with EFE states that since the beginning of February they have already contacted 259 Family Medicine and Primary Care Pediatrics professionals who have exceeded 66 years and four months, the age legal retirement, so that they delay it until the age of 70.
33 compatibility requests
So far, 33 requests for compatibility of personnel who are in a situation of active extension have been received, and 2 for reinstatement after retirement. In addition, another 31 professionals who are going to retire this year could also apply for active retirement.
This figure, recently created, allows doctors who want to benefit from receiving compensation for the work performed and, simultaneously, 75% of their retirement pension, something that Mínguez considers a “good economic incentive”.
The minister highlighted to EFE that the fact of being able to qualify for only 50% of the activity, and instead of working five days a week to do it three, “is bearable and allows the system to be maintained.”
Imbalance between retirements and new doctors
As he explains, there are currently many doctors of retirement age and since between 2010 and 2019 doctors have not been sufficiently trained in these specialties, “there is an imbalance and there is not enough to cover sick leave”, so that from Health it is necessary to act “with all available means”.
“I am very excited about these people because they are the ones who really started Primary Care and they have the mentality of a community family doctor, and that they can transmit this to young doctors is extremely important”, underlines Mínguez, for whom one of the “leitmotifs ” of the Ministry that he directs is to “rescue them to promote Primary Care”.
According to the minister, “between the ages of 65 and 70 we have many doctors and we can only balance the balance by gaining a lot of loyalty from all those who finish”, and in this last aspect he has indicated that some 170 family doctors will finish their residency in May. “I want them to stay with us and I have to contact them and offer them a job,” he adds.
To this possibility, which arises from the modification of the General Social Security Law approved on December 28, can be added the staff of Family Medicine and Primary Care Pediatrics of the public health services who retired as of December 1 January 2022 or who are in a situation of extension in active service, after reaching the legal retirement age.
Single agreement for reversal workers
The minister also advances that the CCOO, UGT and CSIF unions have proposed to Health to draw up a single agreement for hospital workers who have been reverted to public health, labor personnel to be terminated whose claims are focused on unifying with statutory personnel.
“For me it is a very important issue, and whether or not there are elections, I am going to address it to try to solve the problem of the workers that we have with an indefinite contract in the reverted hospitals,” he stresses.
different conventions
According to the minister, at this moment the Alzira Hospital and the Torrevieja Hospital have different agreements and workers with very different payrolls, and also Eresa and the resonance workers have other agreements, when most of the claims of these personnel to extinguish “They are focused on unifying with the statutory staff.”
“In five years, with Alzira there has been no possibility of reaching an agreement, in Torrevieja the same thing happens and the workers are concerned and ask us, and the same will happen with the Dénia Hospital. If we could make a pact and a single agreement, much of the uncertainty and the problem would end, ”he says.
Remember that the PP promoted privatizations
Mínguez explains that the unions have proposed to create a work team to negotiate the problem in a single way and a solution can be given to the affected workers, around 3,000, and now the parties have to sit down to determine what is the legal way to do it.
Asked if he believes that the Popular Party could privatize the reverted departments again, he points out that this party was the one that promoted privatization and adds that “a government can, in less than a year, privatize again what is now not and even promote the privatization of other things”.