The Coordinator in Defense of Public Health of Mataró and Maresme has issued a statement in which it criticizes what they consider to be “lies, delays and lack of transparency” from both the Department of Health and the Mataró City Council regarding the transfer of land for the construction of an intermediate care hospital. They remember that the transfer should have been made in 2018 and did not materialize until six years later.
From the coordinator they emphasize the deterioration of public health with the connivance of politicians and those responsible for public health. They detail the deficits, the increase in waiting lists and the lack of material resources and personnel full of “investment promises that are not carried out” and that perpetuate precarious conditions for workers, as well as the lack of transparency and of citizen participation in decision making.
The activists show “an excessive increase” in private medicine that does business with referrals from public health “with concerts paid for by public budgets” which shows that the business of private health is being “promoted.” . Another problem that has no signs of a solution, at the moment, is Primary Care. They give as an example the Rocafonda CAP, which has undergone an expansion without foreseeing the human and material resources for the immediate opening.
They consider that social and health care in the Maresme region “is in an emergency phase” with the Sant Jaume Hospital collapsed and obsolete, professionals saturated, the maintenance of the facilities with insufficient staff and even “without doctors on duty at night ”.
They denounce, on the other hand, the state of mental health services that, in Maresme, even refer patients to nursing homes "that are not prepared for this type of patient" which, they claim, "aggravates the pathologies." The Platform reasons that after the pandemic, mental health problems have increased in all age groups and therefore it is necessary to provide greater resources, human and material, for psychological care in the CAPs of the region.
On the other hand, the platform denounces the intention of politicians to restrict the participation of residents in organizations such as the Governing Council of the Maresme Health Consortium that, after 10 years, "we have not yet been able to participate in any meeting." For all these reasons, they call for citizen rebellion "to stop the offensive of the powerful who intend to do business with people's health" and call on the population to a citizen rally on December 14, at 6:00 p.m. in front of the Mataró City Council.
