The health centers of Ribeira, Boiro and Rianxo and the offices of Aguiño and Palmeira hosted concentrations yesterday at noon demanding measures to alleviate the critical situation caused by the lack of doctors. Dr. Cristina González indicated that the situation remains the same, without any contact from the Santiago-O Barbanza Health Area Xerencia with them, and that they only know of the offers that are made through the press and “that, As far as we know, they are not objective.” She added that throughout this week they had several colleagues leave for serious reasons for which they had to miss duty. She specified that on Wednesday there were two doctors on the morning shift and that another “helpful” one came for a few hours to reinforce the emergencies, as well as the ambulance outings. And she indicated that yesterday one of her colleagues rejoined “in a regrettable situation, that she shouldn’t be in trouble, but she is here lending a hand, precisely.” In any case, she said that they remain the same, with more colleagues absent or not covered than those who are working, and explained that yesterday she had a morning schedule of more than 50 patients, and in the afternoon another 25., “and I will end up with twelve “Da night, just like the rest of the week.”
Regarding the proposal being studied by the new Health Minister that doctors with a second residence in O Barbanza work in the summer in the area’s health centers, Cristina González stated that “it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me, But he would have to go back to work under the same conditions as us, the only pole at the moment who contacted us or did so under his own conditions, because he has to work in centers with few patients and wants to go here on vacation, which Take him to the office with 20 or 25 patients so he doesn’t get stressed and you will see the 50 or 60 that come in every day. Therefore, in that sense, we are skeptical.”
In relation to the responses that patients who filed complaints about the delay in medical care at their health center are receiving, this doctor from Ribeira indicated that the Department of Health has a standard response and never reads the complaints “that we miss in “Send them, and they press a button and send letters that have no sender, nor are they assigned.” And regarding being told that patients should go to the emergency room or wait in the waiting room for the doctor to finish his shift so that he can attend to them, it does not seem logical, especially when they have several appointments at the same hour and minute and many They remain to consult it in the afternoon or refer them to the PAC.
Effort
For her part, social worker Isabel Fernández stated that despite all the effort her colleagues are making, attending to the emergencies of 60 patients in the morning and as many in the afternoon, people come to her office to ask for help so that Some doctor takes him in his quota and provides assistance “and I have to go begging for the doors so that they receive quality care. And despite the overload that my colleagues have, they collaborate.” And he added that, in addition to this effort in favor of the quality of the care they can provide, they are also involved in the programs that they continue to provide at the Ribeirense health center, such as the tobacco cessation groups, “and not They have some impact even though they have their saturated schedules. They are doing more than all of the professionals in this outpatient clinic can.” And he concluded by stating that the population must be treated with quality care, “despite the fact that those who have responsibilities in healthcare management treat us like second-class patients, in public healthcare we must also practice prevention to avoid getting sick.”
And Juan Luis Furones, Health Councilor of Ribeira, indicated that the lack of medical professionals is derived from the hiring policy that was made in the last years of Núñez Feijóo’s government in the Xunta de Galicia “and now the consequences are seen.” He added that in Galicia there are more than 1,700 doctors over 70 years of age active in the Galician Public Health Service and this is an intolerable situation that will soon result, unless the hiring policy changes, to an absolute lack of assistance. “And Regarding the patients’ complaints receiving a typical response from the Ministry of Health that they go to the end of their doctor’s agenda so that they can see them, it is incomprehensible “If you have 60 patients and you have to see as many others, they have to see them.” The question that we ask the Xunta is what time is that doctor going to leave for home, because you have the right to rest and a decent job as or two professionals,” said the Ribeirense dil. He said the same for the answer they give them to go. by the Emergency Department of the PAC or the Hospital do Barbanza to request that they issue prescriptions for their medications that they ran out of, and that in their opinion “does not seem practical at all.”
Boiro
Katia Lages, a family doctor at the Boiro health center, whose workers joined the mobilizations yesterday, with the support of the Barbanza Public Health Defense Platform, stated that they want to provide quality care to their patients but that Currently, with the workload they have having to see between 40 and 60 patients, it is “completely impossible to do”, stating that in this way you cannot do well or see people well. “We continue to demand the same thing: we want time and a number of professionals necessary to be able to provide good consultation to patients, and this implies more time to face them, see and choose them and think about what better treatment and better options for all of them. More of 35 patients per shift is madness.
Lages pointed out that the situation they suffer is “chronic” and that “it is more acute at this moment, because they are spending a lot of time mistreating people who work, they have better conditions outside of Spain, so most people are abroad.” And he added that, now, with the number of doctors who are going to retire “it is not too difficult, but impossible, to cover all the positions. Somehow we have to create a policy that convinces people to stay in the places where we are bad Even though it is not easy to go to a place, we do not know from the start that it is bad, that they have a lot of work. The MIRs who are finishing their residence do not want to stay in the Barbanza area because the work load that we have is inhumane. “We endure it because we care about Primary Care and understand that people have the right to receive their support for their health.”
This doctor stated that in other conditions she would say that she likes being a family doctor and that “it is valid to say that you do not want to work or live with anxiety constantly and I do not want to feel every day that I am not doing what I am doing or what I should be able to do.” She took the opportunity to compare the situation that many of the outpatient clinics in O Barbanza are going through with how they operate in Portugal “where the doctors who consult do not have to attend to emergencies because there is a medicalized ambulance.” However, she explained that in places in the Portuguese country where there are many people and doctors have a closed agenda, “many patients are accumulating, or in cities like Lisbon you have to wait two months to get an appointment.” Likewise, she stated that “here we cannot see everything that enters the door, but neither can we leave people in assistance.” For this reason, she said that they need to have their consultations with a specific number and time, as well as a specific team that deals with emergencies.
Platform
Finally, Marián Rodríguiez, from the aforementioned platform, shared the skepticism of the colleagues at the Ribeira health center, indicating that he does not know if an extra to work more in the summer will be enough, especially if they are professionals who come from have a significant work overload and what you want is to rest during your vacation month. He stated that what is happening is a problem due to a lack of planning years ago, “because the positions of family doctors have increased and now they find that not all of them are covered,” and he specified that “this increase in positions is only coming at the expense of that new private universities are opening, but there are no new public faculties of Medicine or that the current capacities are increased. The Government has to take measures from Public Education. He also said that there cannot be so many doctors training in places where there are not enough patients, nor can there be tutors among the doctors who are seeing between 50 and 60 patients a day, “or cal non lles deixa tempo para forma ea xente é maís reluctant to be titor”.