Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE) their demands, above all, those of the most vulnerable people.
This was stated this Tuesday by the sociologist Juan Hernández, who has prepared, commissioned by the College of Nursing of Las Palmas, a report entitled “Care in all policies” in which he analyzes the needs of the population of the islands and the new professional challenges.
Hernández has considered that the primary care system, which was founded in the 1980s, “is in crisis” and “is no longer highly responsive.”
In addition, it does not have enough doctors and it is not attractive to physicians, for which reason it has indicated that more attention will have to be paid to nursing to attend to a long-lived society and there will have to be more collaboration between these professionals.
In 2030 it is estimated that 2,830 doctors will retire in the Canary Islands but 3,500 nurses will join, the sociologist and health consultant has detailed.
In a press conference together with the president of the aforementioned College, Rita Mendoza, he explained that the “demographic situation of the Canary Islands is a time bomb” given the aging that its population has experienced, more than double the Spanish average in recent 10 years.
The aging of the population together with the increase in chronic diseases, as well as the lack of attention to health promotion and prevention in education requires a system that reinforces care, Mendoza stressed, who said that for this it is the reorientation of public resources and a rapid adaptation of its professionals are necessary.
“All the problems derived from the new social and demographic realities translate into a need for care and a new vision of the health and social health system,” insisted the president of the Las Palmas College of Nursing, who has called for greater attention to chronic pathologies.
The Canary Islands is the autonomous community where the most people go to the emergency room, especially patients with chronic pathologies, so a new approach to care would change this situation, according to Mendoza, who has also stressed the need to promote education programs in health in schools to promote healthy habits and disease prevention.
Likewise, it has been pointed out that it is necessary to change the map of competencies in the health environment and allow nurses to develop their competencies to the maximum “without barriers”.
The new competencies of nursing “are clear and well defined, but “there is a lack of dialogue with doctors and knowledge of what nurses of the 21st century are,” Mendoza considered.
Hernández has highlighted that the interannual growth rate of the older population is much higher in the Canary Islands than in the rest of the State and the rate of decrease of the population under 15 years of age is also more accentuated in the islands than in Spain as a whole .
The four municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants that register the lowest fertility rate are in the archipelago, since they are its two capitals, as well as Telde and La Laguna, he stressed.
To this, he added that the Canary Islands is the second autonomous community, after Castilla y León, with a higher percentage of the population over 15 years of age who declare that they perceive their state of health as bad or very bad.
According to Hernández, this negative perception of health status increases polymedication and self-medication, the deterioration of nutritional habits and anxiety and depression, and even mortality. EFE