The Department of Health of the Generalitat will implement a new model of pediatric care in primary care, which includes the implementation over the next year (progressively) of a total of 79 territorial pediatric care teams (ETAP) with nurses and pediatric doctors. This means that the majority of CAPs that until now had a pediatrician will no longer have one and that families will have to go to a new physical space – still to be announced in most cases – when they want this professional to visit their children. .
Salut also announced yesterday the incorporation of a new pediatrics service at 061 Salut Respon starting in June 2024.
At a press conference, the minister of the sector, Manel Balcells, stressed that they have been working for months on this new model of pediatric care that "guarantees equity and quality of care throughout the territory."
“We work tirelessly so that all children receive the best possible care,” he stressed. Pediatric care will be concentrated in 79 ETAPs, of which 25 are currently operational while the rest are still unknown. In this sense, Balcells wanted to reassure families, arguing that they will receive all the necessary information at the appropriate time in their usual CAP and also through 061.
The head of Pediatric Action of the department, Gemma Ricós, explained that each of the ETAP will have between 8 and 15 pediatricians and between 8 and 15 nurses, who will all be linked to between 4 and 7 basic health areas (made up of neighborhoods or districts in urban areas, or by one or more municipalities in rural areas) and that each facility will have its own management team and an independent management budget, and may be located in one or different buildings.
Within an ETAP there will also be family and community specialist nurses with experience in pediatrics, health social workers, dentists, nursing care assistants and health administrators.
Balcells stated that the professionals will “be sized” with respect to the needs of each of the facilities – which will provide care to between 5,000 and 25,000 minors from 0 to 14 years of age each – and that the model has been contrasted with professional associations and groups. parliamentarians.
Asked about social and neighborhood groups who have expressed doubts regarding the model, Balcells asked that they “take a good look at it and wait to see how it will develop,” stressing that it is a guarantee model to provide better assistance. Likewise, he argued that the new system does not neglect “accessibility and proximity.” In this sense, he recalled the possibility of contacting – starting June 1 – a pediatrician directly through 061.
Ricós added that the idea is to guarantee that the travel time from any basic area to a specific ETAP is a maximum of 30 minutes with the usual means of transport and always taking into account, of course, the characteristics of the specific territory, such as the rurality or its own climate.
