2023-12-05 20:59:57
Updated Tuesday, December 5, 2023 – 19:59
This Thursday the extraordinary plenary session will address the distribution of 2.5 million euros to improve plasma donation.
The Ministry of Health has called for this Thursday, December 7, an extraordinary plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the Health System (CISNS), the first with Minister Mnica García, in order to distribute 2.5 million euros to the autonomous communities to improve self-sufficiency in plasma, within the framework of the national strategy. The Popular Party has expressed its “astonishment” that this first meeting does not address the lack of doctors in primary care, for which a monographic summit is requested. It must be remembered that, for example, recently it has been generated controversy in Castilla y León over the hiring of more than 200 doctors without MIR specialty to fill places at the first level, a practice that all autonomous communities actually resort to.
In this Interterritorial Council, which will be held electronically, Health will distribute the funds to improve plasma donation. The Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH) had already warned that Spain has to increase the number of plasma donors to be self-sufficient and not having to buy it outside, and will need at least 1.1 million liters of this essential raw material for the survival of many patientsthat is, 758,000 liters more than it produces.
The distribution of this money to the communities will be used to obtain plasma through plasmapheresis, a technique that separates the components of the blood extracted from the body of a patient or donor to use it as therapy, generally in immune disorders and other conditions.
In addition to this advice, Health will call an ordinary plenary session next week, this time in personwith the health advisors, of whom the Ministry has not yet reported the agenda, although García in public appearances has stated that the priority issues are waiting lists, primary care, the State pact for mental health and the universality of public health.
Monographic for AP
And the Popular Party wants to talk about primary care, which demands – once again a monographic Interterritorial Council dedicated to addressing the lack of primary care doctorsfor which they state again that it is necessary to carry out a shock plan that includes incentives for the coverage of primary care places and the increase in the MIR offer of Family Medicine by a thousand places, issues that in practice and with greater or lesser success have been addressed in recent years at the national and regional level.
“Those responsible for Health of the PP see with astonishment how in the first meeting of the Interterritorial Council that the ministry has convened, the urgent need for primary care professionals in the SNS was not included on the agenda,” say sources from the party, which They criticize that the Government “has not taken care of, nor does it seem like it wants to take care of, solving the problem.”
The party included in its electoral program in the last elections the promise of a “shock plan for primary care, with incentives to fill positions in Family and Community Medicine and Pediatricians; improvements in training; an additional public offer of 1,000 new MIR places per year, until the problem is solved and facilitate active retirement for doctors up to age 72“.
Little room to increase the MIR supply
Given the lack of doctors, communities and the Ministry of Health have made efforts to increase the supply, going from 1,914 MIR places in Family Medicine in 2019 to the 2,492 that will be offered in the 2024 call. Despite this increase, the PP has been putting the proposal of add 1,000 places temporarily until the deficit is resolved. But, as Diario Médico already reported, in practice this implies increasing the number of accredited places, because the system is practically at maximum teaching capacity. According to the call for the MIR 2024 exam, In June there was only room to add 33 more places to the offer.
Some communities ask that with the new MIR Family program (whose update has been pending since January), they must be officially accredited by the ministry, but professionals ask that the available resources be analyzed so as not to further strain the system. Furthermore, In the last two years there have been vacant MIR positions in this specialty: in 2022 there were 93 without R1 and in 2023 there were 131.
On the other hand, communities have the capacity, and in fact they are already doing so in practice, autonomous communities such as Galicia, to implement the incentives they consider appropriate to fill primary care assistant positions that are less attractive to professionals. In fact, The Human Resources Commission approved this year a reference framework documentwithout obligation, to have common guidelines regarding how these incentives should be: padditional points in selective processes, four-day days, special complements depending on the population or socioeconomic circumstances of the area, etc.
Furthermore, the previous central government approved the Enhanced active retirement for primary care physicianswhich, according to data from the Ministry of Health, 524 doctors have been accepted until the beginning of September. The review of retirement age It is an issue that is on the table in the reform of the Framework Statute and, in line with the PP proposal, the communities have proposed that the definitive retirement age be raised from 70 to 72 years.
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