The Medical Union has advised resident doctors (MIR) who have completed their training in family medicine not to continue working in Cantabria due to “their miserable salaries, their beds for on-call duty, their unfulfilled agreements, their lack of recognition and their systematic violation of fundamental rights.”
In addition, he announced that he would challenge the order to create doctor positions without an assigned quota “for violation of the 2022 strike exit agreement.”
This was reported this Tuesday during a press conference of the Medical Union, which warned that the places without an assigned quota, as they are collected, “can mean the disappearance of primary care” as is currently the case because the Administration “has refused to limit their creation”, leaving “with premeditation the door open to the depreciation of current places and their replacement by these”.
According to the union, in the medium term, patients “will no longer have a reference doctor and health centers will become simple emergency care centers.”
The vice-president of the Medical Union, Santiago Raba, indicated that after a semester, they were presented with a draft project that “also affects” the way of organizing their work in primary care, which, he said, “surely” will lead them, “if there is no justification,” to a “conflict.”
He stressed that the resident doctors rejected the formula of mixed contracts with reinforcements and without limitation of the number of interventions to be carried out on weekends and public holidays.
He criticised the fact that, despite the need for doctors to come and train in Cantabria, they are offered salaries of 1,200 euros per month – “less than a guard” – and beds to sleep in libraries or gyms of health centres, while in other autonomous communities they offer “much better” conditions.
Additionally, during another summer, doctors found that they were the only group to suffer from limitations when it came to taking vacations, as well as last-minute cancellations.
Similarly, Raba said that the recent creation of hard-to-fill positions at the Laredo hospital has been “a failure” since the conditions are “insufficient to be attractive,” which is why the five anesthesiologists who were to be hired rejected the positions.
Regarding the situation of the pediatricians of Valdecilla who are on duty in the two regional hospitals, he stressed that it is also “surreal”, charging differently depending on the hospital where they go to do their work and “under the threat of disciplinary procedures, they let themselves be brought in even if it is voluntary.
In this sense, he indicated that “one more month of courtesy has been granted to solve the problem” in Sierrallana and, if it is not solved, on October 1 there will be no more pediatricians in this hospital and they will have to close the hospital. Pediatric emergency service. “We are already fed up,” he said.
The Medical Union demanded that the proposal for doctors without a quota include a limit on the number of 37 places, “not one more”; two shifts of a maximum of one month – one excluding weekends – to avoid an additional accumulation in the summer; and positions that are difficult to fill “for all intents and purposes” are considered, such as those that have been proposed for anesthesiologists and other specialties in hospitals such as Laredo.
Freezing the pact
The union’s vice president also spoke of the “enormous malaise” that exists in the group due to the “lack of recognition” and the “disregard for the training, dedication and responsibility” required of the medical group compared to others.
Proof of this, he said, is the government’s “freezing” of the development of the health pact signed with doctors, “without any progress” four months after its signing, as well as the intention to sign other pacts with other groups that “directly interfere” with the organization and execution of their work.
As he pointed out, Spanish doctors are “those who are the lowest paid” compared to the rest of the professional categories in the health sector, earning “barely” 20% more, and “we still have a government that seems determined to reduce this difference.” even more salary,” he censored.
“The management of primary care is a real disaster,” Raba denounced, who criticized the fact that it “does not serve” the sector and “does not systematically respect” all the regulations. “The main cancer that we currently have in primary care is the management team itself,” said the vice-president, who once again called for the entire management team to be “changed”.
Finally, the Medical Union regretted that all this would “inevitably” lead in the years to come to a “slow decline of the said system and a progressive loss of its capacity to retain and attract said talents”.
“There is a lack of political will at the government level and there is a lack of management talent at the ministry and the Cantabrian Health Service to capture and develop all the talent and potential that doctors can bring to the health system,” said the vice-president of the union, who was “pessimistic” about the order including the changes they demand.
Raba was accompanied at the press conference by Oscar Pascual, secretary general; Oscar Ortiz, treasurer of the Medical Union; and Cristina Naranjo, union representative of the union’s Valdecilla Hospital.
