IDIS affirms that the private sector is not the solution to the collapse and abandonment suffered by public health

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S. Gutierrez

Madrid

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The Institute for the Development and Integration of Healthcare (IDIS Foundation) presented this Thursday the Private Healthcare Report: adding value 2022, a document that, for the twelfth year, updates the data from the private sector and puts on the table its contribution to the System National Health (SNS).

Under the title ‘Analysis of the Spanish health system: arguments for a reformulation’, Juan Abarca, President of the IDIS Foundation, has denounced that the Public Administration is selling a very serious situation of drift and degeneration of the public system as a success, «Faced with absolutely obvious data, which would have to be interpreted as warning signs, the Administration defines them as positive ». “Our great concern is that public representatives show no signs of promoting actions that will improve the situation.”

The report indicates that the private health sector assumes a very relevant part in our country since it carries out 30.8% of surgical interventions

For Abarca, there have been many years of continuous abandonment «a process of degeneration for 30 years, a lack of efficiency that affects the user, becoming clear with the arrival of the pandemic, in the Spanish public health system the center is the workers (around 1,000,000) and not the patient, as it should be.

In the situation of collapse due to Covid-19, “accessibility problems” have arisen, and given the impossibility of accessing the primary care system, patients have sought the solution “to the waiting lists, which already had become customary, “we are witnessing problems of accessibility to Primary Care”.

He commented that “we were already very used to waiting lists, but what had not been experienced was the lack of access to primary care, the most affected by “neglect” have been the elderly and chronic patients, generating very inequalities large between autonomous communities.

Until the pandemic, our sector grew because we did it better every year; now we continue to grow because the public health system is doing it wrong

Regarding the lack of innovation and digitization, he confirmed that “we live in a contradiction.” Thanks to European funds, the government has allocated 795 million euros with the aim of modernization but it is nothing more than a sign of accumulated technological backwardnesseither. “This item comes from European funds for the recovery of Covid-19 and is the result of the failure of the public sector, with great technological obsolescence since 2010,” Abarca pointed out.

Currently, the number of people in Spain who have a medical insurance amounts to 11,000,000, despite seeming to be a good figure and situation for the private sector, it is not. “Until the pandemic, our sector grew because we did it better every year; now we continue to grow because the public health system is doing wrong».

And he warns: “We are an alternative to the patient to offer personalized treatment, but we cannot be the solution to the weaknesses of the public system.”

Health expenditure

The global analysis of the contribution of the 2022 data shows that the private health sector represents a high weight in the Spanish productive sector and is key to the sustainability and viability of the health system.

Thus, the director of the IDIS Foundation, Martha Villanuevapointed out, during the presentation of the data, that “in fact, private health spending accounts for 29.4% of total health spending and the figure has been growing, reaching 33,398 million euroswhich represents 2.7% of GDP, a percentage that added to the 0.66% corresponding to public health spending dedicated to health care in privately owned centers adds up to a total of 3.36% of GDP.

The report shows that the private sector frees up public health resources thanks to the more than 9.8 million insured persons (excluding mutual insurance companies), who do not consume SNS resources.

In 2021, there were more than 11 million insured persons, which represents an increase of 3.8% between 2016 and 2021

Thus, it is estimated that the savings generated by private insurance would be between 5,679 million euros (if the citizen covered by the private policy makes a mixed use, consuming public and private resources) and 15,628 million euros (if the citizen covered by the private policy exclusively uses the private system).

On the other hand, the private sector shows a positive trend both in the number of insured and in the volume of premiums. The report shows that in 2021 there have been more than 11 million insured persons, which represents an increase of 3.8% between 2016 and 2021.

Regarding care activity, the report indicates that the private health sector assumes a very relevant part in our country: «lIt performs 30.8% of surgical interventions, registers 23.1% of discharges and attends to 24.2% of emergencies (30.9% in the case of incorporating these same parameters)».

Another aspect that the report analyzes is the accessibility of the population to health care. Currently, private healthcare has 431 private hospitals (representing 56% of all hospital centers), which corresponds to a staff of 49,748 beds (32% of the total existing beds in Spain).

In addition, the report details, the private sector is also a generator of employment and a responsible agent in social and environmental terms: «In our country it employs approximately 286,719 professionals, of which 38% carry out their activity in the intra-hospital setting, while the The remaining 62% do so in the outpatient setting. 23% of the jobs generated correspond to doctors, 25% to nurses, and the remaining 52% to other health and non-health professionals who carry out their professional activity in the private health sector”, said the general director of the IDIS Foundation .

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