The problems that Cantabria is experiencing in the provision of ambulance service do not seem to be improving after the recent modification of the scheduled medical transport contract. In just 15 days since the new company took over, the various patient complaints have highlighted situations as alarming as the latest one this week, when an elderly couple had to wait more than nine hours at Marqués from the Valdecilla University Hospital in Santander must return to his home in Castro Urdiales after a chemotherapy session.
“We don’t come to the hospital for pleasure, we come because my wife has cancer and, what’s more, we are elderly people, without the means to take a taxi or a hotel to spend the night. “We do not have the right, for us, users of the Cantabrian Health Service, to be treated like this,” denounced in a press release the 75-year-old man affected by this long wait which took place last Monday and in in which his wife – 74 years old – fell ill – like him as companion, they suffered for nine hours from the uncertainty of not knowing when they would return home.
From 3 p.m. until after midnight, they waited for an ambulance to take them back to Castro Urdiales, about 75 kilometers away. “We are already used to the fact that some days we have to wait longer and others less, we know perfectly well that it is not a taxi or a la carte service and that sometimes we have to wait until two or three hours to be able to optimize travel, but “that takes the cake,” laments the person concerned.
And if that wasn’t enough, during this time, this couple had to endure the fact that two ambulances scheduled for two destinations close to their city of residence did not accept their transfer. First in Laredo, 24 kilometers from his home, but later, after eight in the afternoon, an ambulance with empty seats went to Otañes, a neighborhood in the municipality of Castro Urdiales.
“While we were waiting for more than five hours with my wife sitting in the wheelchair and exhausted from getting up early and the chemo session, an ambulance left for Otañes with two people. As there are plenty of places, we tell the driver to enjoy the ride and drop us off at Castro, who picks him up on the way, which he refuses. We ask him to call the company and tell us about it, but he insists that he is just following orders and will not call anyone, that we continue to wait and that if we want to, we can file a complaint at the meter,” the man said in his statement.
“At ten o’clock in the evening, already completely alone in the room and after more than seven hours of waiting, they informed us that the hospital was going to close and they transferred us from Valdecilla Sur, to the emergency area, in insisting that we should not be afraid that at any moment they would come and get us, which eventually happened at 12:17 in the evening, after more than nine hours of waiting. After one in the morning we arrived at our home in Castro Urdiales,” he continues.
“Anyone who has undergone chemotherapy or has a family member who has undergone it knows what it means to be in a wheelchair for nine hours after the session and to get up at six in the morning to go from Castro to the hospital in the day,” laments the man, expressing his “sadness” for the “lack of coordination or internal wars in the companies that have entrusted the ambulance service” which result in “misses and delays from time to time including the patients suffer.
“Today it was our turn, but tomorrow there will be other patients who will have to experience this, that is why my wife and I are asking those who correspond (Castro and regional politicians, hospital directors …) not to look away and take action on the matter, and I also ask the media to report on this situation to help us make the problem visible and hopefully stop it. resolve,” the press release concludes.
More cases
This is not an isolated case since the Valencian company Diavida took over from Ambuibérica on October 1 in the management of regular transport. Another woman, speaking to elDiario.es, reported that her 94-year-old mother had to wait more than 24 hours earlier this month for her to be transferred by ambulance from Reinosa Hospital to her home just 10 kilometers away . far.
According to her account, on a Friday at a quarter to six she was admitted to the Tres Mares Hospital at home after being diagnosed with her illness, but it was not until 11 p.m. on Saturday that a ambulance took her home. During this time, as he explains, they repeatedly asked for explanations: “All the teams of nurses and doctors told us that they had already requested the ambulance and called back, but the “the ambulance did not appear,” he laments.
And finally, it was an ambulance which, taking advantage of a transfer from the Sierrallana hospital in Torrelavega to Reinosa, took care of this woman’s case. “If it doesn’t happen for this reason, we are still here,” quips the daughter of the woman concerned in statements to this media, which also highlights the good disposition and the apologies received from the service workers.
“We are sorry, it is not our fault,” they said, recalling the change of winning company and recognizing that the situation they had experienced was a reason to come forward publicly. And according to union sources consulted by this newspaper, “it is the employees who carry out the work despite the difficulties of lack of personnel and problems with the computer system”, after a change of management which, as they recall, “was carried out with an even lower contract than the previous one, when there were already many gaps in the service.
parliamentary questions
Faced with this scenario, the Cantabrian PSOE presented this week a battery of initiatives to the Regional Parliament “to find out why the Government of Cantabria does not oblige the new company to which the ambulance service complies with the terms of the contract”.
“It is regrettable, an abuse and a very serious lack of humanity to see how patients treated with chemotherapy in Valdecilla have to wait up to 10 hours for an ambulance to take care of their transfer to Castro Urdiales,” said the general. secretary and parliamentary spokesperson, Pablo Zuloaga, during a press conference in which he addressed the health situation in the community.
“This is not an isolated case, there are hundreds of complaints coming from patients who have to travel by ambulance and who see that with an essential public service like this, medical transport is neglected. Since the new contractor arrived with an alarming drop, we see how there is a lack of professionals, how there is a lack of vehicles to provide the services and we see how the Government of Cantabria does nothing to demand that they comply”, he denounced, highlighting the “lack of humanity” of the regional president, María José Sáenz de Buruaga (PP), “with public services”.
The company that awarded the scheduled medical transport refused to evaluate these cases or answer questions from elDiario.es, while the Ministry of Health recognized the problems and warned against the possibility of establishing sanctions.
“We know the difficulties in managing medical transport that the new company generates. Failures and non-compliances will result in the respective files, but now the most important thing is to ensure that there are no failures and that the situation is normalized. Our priority is to transfer patients well and secondarily to punish them, if possible,” they said from the department led by César Pascual (PP).
