Madrid (EFE) measures to curb healthcare overload and improve the salaries of professionals.
The Ministry of Health and the Primary Care strike committee have signed the agreement after a five and a half hour meeting that puts an end to the conflict.
The Ministry of Health and the strike committee sign an agreement
Both parties reached “a verbal pre-agreement” yesterday, after almost four months of indefinite strike, which was ratified at night by those affected in a telematic meeting.
In statements to journalists, the general secretary of Amyts, Ángela Hernández, has been “moderately satisfied” with the agreement signed by the Ministry of Health and the strike committee, although she has expressed her concern because the times to implement the remuneration measures are “very tight”.
After signing the agreement, which includes everything that was agreed on Wednesday, Hernández explained that the document contemplates that the remuneration measures have to pass “as soon as possible” by the Health Sector Table and by the Governing Council to its approval and be implemented before the incorporation of the Internal Resident Physicians (MIR) who finish their training on May 27.
The remuneration measures, the general secretary of Amyts has pointed out, are aimed at encouraging new specialists who finish their training to occupy 20% of the positions of family doctors and 30% of the positions of Pediatrics that are currently discovered, which which means that there are a million people from Madrid, including 200,000 children, without an assigned family doctor or pediatrician.
Given that the residents finish their training on May 27, he pointed out, “there is a very clear compliance period” that will allow us to see “in a few weeks” the will to put into practice what was signed by both parties.
Hernández has said that “unfortunately” they have not been able to include in the agreement that the processing of Temporary Disability be extended this year to all levels of care.
“The situation of Primary Care is not something that has developed in a few months or with the pandemic because even before the health crisis we had been warning of the situation” in which Family doctors and pediatricians at this level of care were found, has admitted.
In his opinion, “this is the last opportunity to try to stop the deterioration and maintain the quality of care in Madrid’s Primary Care”.
“We don’t want compensation so that family doctors and pediatricians earn more; We want these salaries so that they stop leaving, so that we attract more and so that as these open positions are filled, there will be fewer problems of care overload ”, he stressed.
If this agreement is not implemented, “we fear the continuity of the model and we continue to have certain reservations about what the regional government’s model for Primary Care is in the medium and long term,” he considered.
