Primary care health professionals have been warning about the deterioration of the health system for years, but they were accused of partisanship and their voices were drowned out in the political brawl. But, after the pandemic, it was shown that their complaints (lack of investment, abandonment of professionals, excess bureaucracy, overload, health centers without sufficient equipment...) were more than true. And, as usual, all Health Ministers began to demand that the Ministry of Health take measures to increase the number of doctors, a measure that should have been adopted a decade ago (the training time of a specialist doctor).
Now the rush comes in, when it is more than evident that there is a lack of doctors, and many of those who exist are leaving due to the working conditions. And in the next five years, the situation will get worse.
To do? In January, a monographic interterritorial council on primary care will address the situation, with solutions that are the responsibility of both the Ministry of Health (creating more primary care places, a solution that, as has been said, requires time) and the communities (accreditation of those places).
Some data: regarding specialized health training places in family and community medicine, there has been an increase of 38% in the last six years. If we add all those that have been increasing, there are almost 3,000 more places. In the 2023-24 call, 682 more positions have been reached than in the previous call.
Regarding the rate of accreditation of places, it is very unequal depending on the territories: the highest figure is recorded in Extremadura, with an accreditation rate of 9.25 places per 100,000 inhabitants, a figure that practically triples that of the community with the least Madrid has 3.76 places per 100,000 inhabitants.
And in between, some proposals to address the situation in the short term. The World Health Organization (WHO) proposes extending the retirement age until there are enough doctors. But the current team at the Ministry of Health does not believe that it is the solution.
This was said a few days ago by the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, who assures that Mónica García's team does not advocate delaying retirement until age 72. Health's priority is to improve the working conditions of professionals instead of “squeezing professionals” beyond their working life.
"We believe that in general terms our path is not to squeeze professionals beyond ages that, let's say, make a position for life almost literal, but rather we have to improve the conditions so that professionals remain,” says Padilla.
The Secretary of State, who is also a family doctor, defends the need for health professionals to have “the ability to retire” when they reach retirement age after an entire life dedicated to medicine.
However, Padilla recalls that the ministry has implemented measures such as the enhanced active retirement program that allows family and pediatric doctors to extend their work after retiring, with a kind of reduction in working hours that makes half of the salary compatible with 75% of the pension under specific conditions and for a specific duration.
Health is committed to encouraging young doctors to “stay” in primary care and along these lines it seems to agree with measures that some communities have already announced, such as offering two or three year contracts to MIRs when they finish their training in care. primary. The objective, in Padilla's words, is to ensure that “they do not abandon primary care.”
