rates that do not convince doctors or patients

Register Primary Care. for the main target. 4,240 family physicians and 720 pediatricians who was called today indefinite health strike in the Community of Madrid. The “heavy workload, endless schedule, and lack of time to care for patients” protest, the latter of which worries toilets the most.

Attention ratios are not enough. A common view between doctors and patients. Couples affected by a situation that erupted last Friday after the community of Madrid failed to reach an agreement with the Ministry of Health. What happened and why is an unprecedented break in public health starting today?

Do you want to know more? 2 minutes.

Context… On November 7, the area’s out-of-hospital emergency doctors’ strike began after centers reopened, which lacked the necessary doctors to care for patients. one came Agreement with the Ministry of Health after ten days, last November 17

This first strike served as an incentive for Primary Care and Pediatrics doctors. The Amyts union then asked to sit down with the council to resolve the issue at these other health centres. According to the union, Madrid is the least invested autonomous community in Primary Healthcare in all of Spain, and the regional government “violates” signed agreements by “consistently mistreating” professionals.

No agreement was reached that Friday: Enrique Ruiz Escudero’s council refused to raise funding. As a result, after three days, Amyts named this new indefinite beat.

Yes but… A minimum level of service will be provided in all health centers.

• Generally, those with four or more doctors will have two GPs and one pediatrician per shift.

• In centers with less than four doctors, a doctor and a pediatrician will be on duty. If there is no pediatrician, another family doctor will take their place.

What are they saying?… To understand the keys to the strike, you must talk to those affected. Give a name and a face to those who suffer from complaints that the majority union has left in writing as grounds for going on strike.

• Petra María Cortés is one of the family doctors who said they could no longer deal with this situation. He works at a Health Center in She leganés and claims that both he and his colleagues deal with 45 to 65 patients per doctor on a “normal day”.

• “We want to provide quality and timely care to our patients,” says Petra. “We love our patients” because “we are all-occupational physicians,” and as a result, “we feel we cannot give them that qualification,” she insists. It takes “at least 10 minutes” to show the required attention and you will have an appointment every 6 minutes where appropriate. A decreasing number in many cases as “sometimes three patients come in at the same time”.

For this reason… Petra is the voice of many. That 10 minutes is what Amyts claimed in their petition. For this, they want the number of patients per day to be reduced from 50 to 31 for family physicians and to 21 for pediatricians.

This is not the only demand though. They also demand:

• Improve working conditions.

• The ability to attend their programs privately, without having to look after patients who are not on their list.

• Combining programs that allow family reconciliation.

• Increase salaries to prevent the escape of professionals who have left Primary Care in recent years.

How does it affect me?… Mayte Sánchez attended an appointment with her family doctor today. She assured lasexta that “of course two or three minutes wasn’t enough for my diagnosis”. This is the time when they can join it today and on other occasions. “You wait a week or more than 15 days to make an appointment and the day comes and everything comes quickly”, because there are just a few people who need their turn to come. “I think there should be at least 10 minutes between appointments to avoid this delay,” she says.

María García, another young woman with an appointment at one of the Fuenlabrada health centers, believes that “doctors often tell you the first thing that comes to mind because they don’t have time.”

At the gates of the same centre, Pablo assures that “the problem was always that the doctors were always strict” but now “it’s worse because the politicians are experts in everything and don’t listen to the injured.” .

Other face… The start of this strike gave way to different views. Among the most striking are those of Madrid Community Councilor Enrique Escudero and its president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

• Escudero assured that while it was a historic strike for Amyts, it was a minority strike. “The follow-up to the primary care doctors’ strike was 35% this morning,” the consultant said.

• Ayuso, for her part, thinks it’s not time to strike “Because the harm done to citizens is greater”, because “there are many cases of colds and bronchiolitis” and the system can become saturated. It fully coincides with the opinions of doctors and pediatricians: the system is already saturated (but not now, for years). This is the reason for the call for strike in the fight for better public health.