The salary charged by the 8,600 family doctors in Andalusia has unleashed an unexpected row between the group and the Minister of Health, Catalina García, after she estimated the average salary at 97,888 gross euros per year, more than the president of the Board from Andalusia [87.333 euros] and almost 1,000 euros more than the national average.
All unions in the sector, plus the Andalusian Council of Medical Associations, have demanded a rectification – some are calling for his resignation – and warn that to reach that salary you have to work many overtime hours. The scuffle has been heating up the public debate all week, and led to this Wednesday in the Andalusian Parliament: an hour of debate on the salaries of doctors between the counselor and the spokesperson for Health in the PSOE, María Ángeles Prieto, without the numbers from one to the other even a little bit closer.
24 hours later, in the second plenary session and with questions from Vox, the counselor finally backed down, lowering the medical salary of a family doctor in Andalusia to 78,000 euros, about 20,000 euros less than the figure she had defended tooth and nail for days. previous. “The amount varies each month. If you add three years, it varies; If you add a professional career level, it varies; If you do more guards, it varies; If there is more continuity of care, it varies,” García said, precisely along the lines that the unions pointed out when demanding a rectification.
Beyond the data, the Government of Juan Manuel Moreno has accepted with a certain “discomfort” the umpteenth focus of tension that surrounds the Minister of Health: the increase in waiting lists, the high healthcare pressure that health workers endure, the inability to cover the positions of internal resident doctor (MIR), the controversial contract of the former Minister of Health for a private insurer to which he awarded 44 million euros by hand, the strike of the lawyers of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), the delay of contracts negotiated without publicity to refer patients to the private sector, and the paralysis of the Framework Agreement that came to stabilize, openly and with competitive competition, these referrals.
The dance of figures has generated a certain chaos, but not even the downward correction that the counselor admitted this Thursday quite coincides with the payrolls that a handful of Andalusian doctors have spread these days on social networks. As defended by professionals and endorsed by the sectoral table through the remuneration table approved by Health, the most common salary is closer to 50,000 gross euros per year than the 78,000 drawn by the Ministry.
According to a report from the Granada Medical Union, the salary of a general practitioner who does not work on call and taking into account the different supplements is between 49,384 euros and 71,334 euros gross, figures that are below that provided by Salud.
To understand this distortion, we must analyze how a doctor’s salary is made up, according to the information published by the SAS itself. As civil servants, they receive their base salary, which is 1,300.87 euros gross per month, plus the usual supplements for public employees, which are the destination and triennium benefits. The latter, as their name indicates, are added every three years. That is, each three-year period for a family doctor is 50.07 euros gross per month, which after six years will become 100.14 euros per month and so on. For its part, the destination complement represents 683.75 gross euros per month.
Furthermore, in the case of doctors, the specific supplement must be added, which is divided into training and hardship, which implies an additional 1,063.55 euros per month. There is another addition which is the CRP or professional performance which in primary care adds another 6,744.81 gross euros per year at most, but as this supplement depends on the assessment made by the SAS of the workers’ performance, the unions remember that it is never It is valued at the maximum, so that amount is never charged, but rather about 2,000 euros less on average.
Finally, all doctors receive the so-called APR, which is an extra depending on the health cards they serve, which are around 300 euros – and could be double or triple if a doctor has to do the work of two or three doctors. primary, although this is not common. And the extra payments must also be added, which are 1,486.51 gross euros per year.
Overtime in focus
If all concepts are taken into account, a family doctor’s base salary is around 50,000 euros gross per year. A salary that is far from the 78,000 euros that the counselor announces and the 97,888 euros that Salud said until this Thursday was the average, and which it now places as the “standard salary” of a doctor between 45 and 50 years old, with fifteen service exercises, six three-year periods and 72 hours of guard duty.
A difference in which there is controversy because the unions do not deny that there are those who can collect that money, but that they are a “minority” and “very specific” professionals given that such a high salary compared to the base is obtained by working additional days. and have an accredited professional career. What’s more, despite the fact that the counselor has backed down, lowering the figure to 78,000 euros, the sectoral table describes it as “the lie of the lie.” To reach that figure, “exhausting” work days are also required, which would be added to the base salary until it is reached. According to unions like UGT, it implies more than 100 additional hours per month.
That is, complementary work is understood as the overtime or continuity of care – also working in the afternoon – that a family doctor does. However, overtime and continuity of care only occur in cases where the needs of the health center require it or what is the same: due to collapse. Something for which the unions accuse the Ministry of Health of “falsifying” the figures using supplements that are a direct consequence of poor management of public health.
An extra hour is paid at 26.41 euros from Monday to Friday, at 28.75 euros on weekends and at 52.82 euros on special holidays. Continuities of care are paid at 45.52 euros per hour. “There may be doctors who work so many overtime hours as to charge the amount that Health says, but they are a minority and of course they do it at the cost of their own personal lives,” the unions denounce.
What’s more, UGT and CCOO point out that a professional with a certain track record should do 113 12-hour shifts a year and one who is just starting out should do 130, “giving up their family life.” Or what is the same, between 1,300 and 1,500 more hours of work per year. On the other hand, the supplement for professional career is an extra that is not always charged since to access it you have to prove a series of requirements.
The lowest level implies 113.21 euros gross per month and the highest, which is five, amounts to 1,171.97 euros, but “almost no one manages to go up that much.” Between levels you have to wait five years and accredit different requirements. “There are many doctors who do not receive this supplement and, although there has been talk of increasing the level only with seniority, this has not yet been carried out, so adding it to the average salary is not real,” sources point out. of the sectoral table. This medium has asked Health how many family doctors do not work overtime, do not have a professional career or neither of the two issues that increase salaries, given that, according to the unions, they are the majority, but has not received an answer.
Resignation request for the director
For this reason, both unions and the Andalusian Council of Medical Associations categorically deny the Ministry of Health, to the point that the Medical Union requests the resignation of Catalina García as head of the portfolio. “They are trying to discredit doctors by giving data that does not fit reality,” says Rafael Ojeda, president of the Medical Union.
With all of the above, the Ministry of Health insists that the figure given is real and that it corresponds to the average. Despite the requests made by this newspaper to provide the complete statistics that showed the figure of the 97,888 euros gross annual average, they did not provide it because it would be a matter of giving the “payroll of each of the professionals” since it has been done , they insist, with the data managed by the SAS. Nor do they do it now with the 78,000 euros that García announces.
From Health they affirm that the high salary that generated so much controversy corresponds to “a doctor with career level III (of the 5 levels that exist), with 6 three-year terms (between 45 and 50 years old).” Which has a fixed productivity of 7,800 euros and a variable productivity of approximately 8,200 euros. The unions deny the latter because in Andalusia there is no fixed productivity charge and because the variable, which is the so-called CRP, is a maximum of 6,744.81 gross euros per year and not 8,200 euros. “It seems like a half-baked because it is not clear where some figures come from,” they denounce from the sectoral table.
The Ministry of Health completes its calculation by adding that the additional days are charged at 2,444.04 euros per month if they work on a holiday, 36 overtime hours and 18 hours of continuity of care. According to this, if the average they obtain is 97,888.96 euros, a doctor of that same profile without a professional career will receive 90,925 euros per year and another who does not do additional hours will remain at 68,268 euros gross per year. Figures that, in any case, do not fully explain the average because arithmetically they have no explanation since Health does not clarify the origin of the total calculation.
Hence, the unions understand this information from the Ministry of Health as a “challenge” to “discredit” family doctors and that “it seems that they charge a lot and that they complain for no reason.” CCOO, UGT, CSIF and the Medical Union ask the regional Executive to clarify where they obtain this data, which has opened a new dispute between Catalina García and the healthcare interlocutors. Another battle within a war that continues to worsen in Andalusian public health.