On May 10, the office in La Coma, a forgotten neighborhood in the metropolitan area of ??Valencia, was forced to close “due to the sick leave of professionals caused by the attacks and threats received” by health workers. Twelve days later, the center reopened its doors with a strong police presence and private security searching the sick. CCOO-PV denounced at the time that the casualties were due “to the threats that” the doctors receive “daily”, “even on some occasions with weapons”.
Almost four months have passed since the reopening but the pediatricians have not returned in a neighborhood that, as explained by the neighborhood association, continues “abandoned and with safety and cleanliness problems” despite the efforts of many of its residents to reverse the situation and remove that stigma of conflict that has weighed on the neighborhood for decades.
For this reason, the neighbors demonstrated yesterday at the doors of the office to demand that the new Valencian Government recover the Pediatric service that existed until the “unfortunate” events of May occurred, as well as the mental health services and the psychologists that They served the young people of the area.
Also, explains its president, Alfredo Muñoz to La Vanguardia, they demand that the office “not close at three in the afternoon.” This schedule and the lack of staff, he comments, means that some neighbors receive an appointment “for two or three months.” Muñoz understands that the office has become too small to serve not only the 10,000 residents of La Coma but another thousand or two thousand who are assigned to this health center.
In a “peaceful” rally – “we don’t want trouble and we support the doctors because we know it is not their fault” – a group of neighbors demanded more attention and involvement from the institutions that they consider have turned their backs on them for many years. Their cry is desperate: “We are trying to be able to live in the neighborhood,” Muñoz explained, seeking the complicity of the political leaders.
Along these lines, he assured that “they are not criminals” and that “just people are paying for sinners” with the suppression of services that make life even more complicated in a neighborhood with many children and young people. One of the banners at the rally already said it: “Children are not to blame for the actions of adults.”
Thus, Muñoz defends that “a lesson” be given to those who threaten the doctors and have ended up creating this situation that impoverishes the neighborhood. However, he reiterates his idea that his neighbors are not criminals. This idea doesn’t help that, “when you make an appointment, you have to leave your cell phone, your bag and go through a metal detector arch, while two security people watch you.”
Thus, both the neighborhood association and the Department of Health – who remember that this is an inherited problem – admit the difficulties of filling the vacancies in this office.
Health explains to this newspaper that “given the difficulties in hiring Pediatric professionals in general, in the specific case of the Coma office, a redistribution of the resources that this center had was carried out.” Thus, the same sources continue, “the pediatric patients of that office have been referred to the nearest health centers, where they have the health care they require throughout the year.” Health emphasizes that the Pediatric professional pools are permanently open and when a pediatrician who meets the requirements is registered, he or she is hired to fill the vacancies.
On the other hand, regarding the mental health service, the Ministry indicates that “at this time psychological and psychiatric care is carried out through the Child Mental Health Units (USMI), which are departmental and not center-level. health, that is, they cover the entire child population of a health department.” For this reason, they explain that, in the case of La Coma, “the child population is cared for in the USMI located in the Integrated Health Center of Paterna.”
In this context, it does not seem that the end of the conflict that would serve to normalize life in the neighborhood will have a prompt resolution despite the requests of the neighbors.
