HEALTH CENTERS MADRID | Doctors at the call center: “They give us patients like crazy”

“We feel absolutely collapsed. They make us crazy patient. Today, a colleague came crying because they were terrible last week.” The speaker (figurative name) is Natalia, a doctor at the Primary Care Call Center (CAT-AP) in Madrid. A device that, according to the union, AMYTS doctor, He not only takes on his own patients (those who call to make a telephone consultation), but now, in addition, due to the lack of doctors in the summerthey have to care for those from other health centres that have a serious shortage of professionals. A “collapse” that the Madrid Health Department denies to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, saying that they are even below average. in daily patient care.

The Primary Care Telephone Call Center is a service that the Community of Madrid offers to citizens for queries. about minor health problems –medication, covid, respiratory symptoms… –, health information and administrative procedures in coordination with health centers. It is attended by a team of family doctors, nurses and administrative assistants.

It was created during the coronavirus pandemic, to support health centers. The doctors who work in this service, AMYTS explains to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, are professionals with job adaptations. That is, due to their own health problems (many respiratory and, precisely, in some cases due to covid) they cannot care for patients in person, since They are very sensitive to contagions and they have a job specific for them.

Adapted positions

“Some are problems related to the coronavirus and others are not. Some, we have a physical limitation. Others, a vulnerability with infections. The health center is a very infectious place and we cannot submit to that environment. Therefore, occupational healthwhen the pandemic started, they removed us from the consultations because we couldn’t subject ourselves to contagion,” says Natalia. The Occupational Risk Prevention service adapted its positions.

Officially, they work on the device nine doctors in the morning and seven in the afternoon. But there are times, like now, when they have colleagues out, she explains. Her job is to deal with these general medical consultations. The professional complains that they always had overloaded schedules (for example, with patients requesting prescriptions) and that they never know how many patients they have to deal with in each shift.

Calls on demand

“People call on demand”, says. Although they should have spaces of 34 people in the morning or afternoon, they currently serve an average of between 60 and 90 patients. In theory, each call should last five minutes, but the doctor says that is impossible because they are patients who “we don’t know at all. It can’t be something quick.”

The problem is that now, in addition, They have been saddled with another workload. “Now, they can force patients on us. We have no limit. We have our patients and they also refer us those of hard to cover centers, when we, in and of ourselves, are a center that is difficult to cover because, for example, they do not give us substitutes,” says the doctor.

The patches”

The Primary Care Management “continues to apply patches instead of making Family Medicine and Pediatric positions attractive and respecting work schedules,” criticizes AMYTS. The moment of collapse that the CAT is experiencing these days, adds the union, It is due to saturation This is also the situation that many health centres in the Community of Madrid are experiencing this summer, as there is a shortage of doctors. The CAT doctors must take on, in addition to their own telephone appointments, those of these other health centres.

“The fear of these doctors is increasing given the movements of recent weeks: every time a health center is saturated or lacking doctors, the Management looks at the CAT and increases the workload in that specific center,” The union adds that, it insists, the agendas that doctors have are being relegated by this extra overhead.

Furthermore, at AMYTS they denounce that professionals are forced to work “with a serious lack of confidentiality” (everyone is located in a common room), without specific regulation of telephone consultationwithout an established criterion for the consultations that arise and under the threat of being removed from the position that had been adapted to them due to health problems.” Requests “a specific regulation” for this device and that it is not used “as a patch due to the lack of real solutions that Primary Care needs.”

33.7 daily visits

From the Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid, They deny that there is a “collapse” in the service. As an example, they indicate, the average number of telephone calls of the last fortnight of June was estimated at 33.7 telephone calls per professional “when the average agreed upon and proposed between the parties is 37 calls, which is not exceeded, (except in very specific moments, they indicate) these numbers are even below 34 calls.” in person agreed in the agendas with the professionals”.

Madrid Health Department reminds that the Primary Call Center It was born two years ago with a double function; on the one hand, to be an access channel for citizens to answer questions about administrative procedures and health problems, and, on the other hand, to provide support to the health centers that punctually and by their situation might require it.

At the moment, This support is provided to five health centers -with more complex care situations- with a number of consultations (or agendas) defined for each center. In addition, these consultations (or agendas) attended by the Center’s doctors have been reduced by half this summer due to the professionals’ vacations, there are many. Therefore, the average is below what the professionals themselves have agreed upon, concludes the department that directs Fatima Matute.