The Ministry of Health and the Hospital Care Physician Strike Committee have approached positions this Wednesday in the first meeting between both parties to address the demands of these professionals and avoid strikes and have called for a new meeting within a period of 24 /48 hours.
The meeting, which lasted for a little less than three hours, took place at the headquarters of the General Directorate of Human Resources of the Madrid Health Service (Sermas) with the presence of the HR director of Sermas, Raquel Sampedro, and the Deputy Minister of Health Care and Public Health, Fernando Prados.
At the end of it, Daniel Bernabéu, president of Amyts, convener of the strikes on March 1 and 2 together with the Association of Specialist Physicians of Madrid (AFEM), explained that it was a “cordial” meeting at the that they have been able to address “practically all the issues” put on the table by the strike committee.
Both parties have called for a new meeting, which will take place “tomorrow or the day after” to “finish finalizing” and reflect these issues in a document. “In principle, understanding and availability on both sides,” summed up the strike committee spokesman, who highlighted the “goodwill commitment.”
Some aspects are missing to specify, he explained, in some “with difficulties” that require greater “effort” on the part of the Community to “succeed satisfactorily”. In this line, he has indicated that some issues are pending “a more specific pronouncement” by the Ministry of Finance of Javier Fernández-Lasquetty and “goodwill”.
The strike committee has brought to the meeting on Wednesday a decalogue of demands that contemplate four urgent implementation measures, including a 35-hour workday, and another six that could be negotiated for the next legislature. “There is a will to work on all the material that we have brought, although there is a discrepancy regarding the deadlines and specifications. It is very difficult to work with the word and good will,” the spokesman indicated.
Regarding the return to the 35-hour working day, one of the main demands, the Ministry of Health has reiterated in the meeting that it is an issue that affects the Public Function Board, so this would not be the framework of dialogue for it, and they have referred to that it is “feasible and they are there”.
The department headed by Enrique Ruiz Escudero put on the table at the last meeting of the Health Sector Board (where the Satse, Amyts, CC.OO., UGT and CSIT Unión Profesional unions are represented) the possibility of reducing the working day work at 35 hours a week, something that must be dealt with at the Public Function Board, although the Ministry indicated that it will present a study with the real cost of this measure to the Javier Fernández-Lasquetty Ministry of Finance.
“The Ministry of Health wants to make it clear to the Treasury that the cost of this measure is not as high at this time as it was a few years ago, when the last economic study was carried out, so the unions understand that there is economic viability to carry it out immediately”, it was stated at the end of the meeting.
Meanwhile, they have specified, at the Sector Roundtable that will take place in March the content of an instruction will be negotiated so that, by agreement of the five unions present at it, a way of addressing these two and a half hours of excess is regulated.
Likewise, the Ministry announced the return of 232 euros per month to hospital professionals who work on call for the compensation of 37.5 hours per week and the commitment so that all professionals who have approved OPE (Public Offer of Employment) of 2018 are incorporated before summer.
“If they don’t want to work on it here, for us it will continue to be a reason to continue demanding anywhere,” said the president of Amyts.
Another of the demands of the strike committee is “the great OPE 2018/2019”, which affects some 3,500 doctors and supposes “discrimination for the merit contest called for 1,200 at this time”, for their withdrawal and transfer of places to the merit contest. “It is the most technical issue that has been brought to the meeting and there is a will to reach the best solution for the doctors but we want to see how it materializes,” Bernabéu explained.
The third measure to which to give short-term solutions, as indicated by the spokesperson for the strike committee, involves the activation of transfer competitions for medical specialists in the hospital field, paralyzed for 23 years. “There is a will to get to work now on something that is fundamental for the Ministry”, the delimitation of places on which to later make the transfers, “to be able to make them effective as soon as possible.”
Finally, they see an urgent need to put an end to the “toughness” of the guards, poorly paid, poorly considered in terms of breaks and who should be treated better in terms of family reconciliation.
“Until we meet and have a written paper, something more tangible” continues on the table a calendar of future protests that includes one day of strike per month until next October and that would start on March 22.
Specifically, it would affect more than 12,000 medical professionals from the hospitals attached to Sermas, the Alcorcón Foundation University Hospital, the Fuenlabrada University Hospital and the Central Radiodiagnostic Unit (UCR).
In addition to these four priority points, the strike committee has also brought other issues to the meeting such as increasing the budgets dedicated to material and personnel resources that allow better management and reduction of waiting lists within public system hospitals, “something that is notoriously cheaper than its current outsourcing”, or an Emergency and Emergency Plan that recognizes the unique situation of hospital Emergency services, their specialty and their greater hardship.
As a last point, to demand that the Ministry of Health open a negotiating table for the medical field in order to adopt the measures of an organizational nature and working conditions, “necessary for quality health care focused on the patient and in the professional”.
