The Urgent Need for Change in the National Health System: Embracing Awareness and Acceptance in the 21st Century

2024-05-06 07:00:00

According to Nathaniel Branden, “The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance“. This phrase from a psychotherapist can be perfectly applied to understand the moment in which a National Health System is experiencing a need for profound change, adapting to the new reality in which we live, moving from the 20th century to the Current 21st century. It is clear that we are already aware of this need for change, although many do not admit it, but now is the time to take it.

I cannot go without mentioning the various articles I have dedicated in this same opinion forum about the need to change the National Health System. There have been many and, among them all, I refer to the inevitable need to change a model that is obsolete, already outdated, and no longer responds to the needs of patients and professionals.

I believe that this need for change has already dawned on the people responsible for bringing it about; not only are patients and professionals aware of it, but managers and many politicians make this need public. What is clear is that I hardly see serious and serious proposals for change, what is planned as the future and how we can achieve the change, what the pros and cons might be to have, what this change is based on, who and how it will be. pilot, who needs to carry it out, what role will the different professionals play in the new model, who will be in charge, etc. I think Many are afraid to tell the truth, perhaps because many do not like the changes that will happen..

Going back to the beginning, we are clear that there is an awareness of change, the change has already begun and it is doing so without us being informed, without debate, it is simply changing and the facts show it. Already No one can doubt that the model that was based on a strong Primary Care has already changed, this level of care is no longer dying, it is definitely dead. It is obviously true that Primary Care is left to do bureaucratic procedures that no one else wants to do, it is there to direct patient traffic to the corresponding hospital specialist, to “get it done”.

Many truths are already known and, sadly, accepted. Waiting lists to see your family doctor or pediatrician, loss of “longevity”, health centers without doctors or with minimal numbers, hundreds of thousands of patients without an assigned doctor, emergencies outside the hospital without doctors, difficulty filling all the training. places of family doctors, a certain normalization and assumption of the “lesser evil” that sees doctors without a specialty filling the positions of specialists in family medicine or many of these doing the same as those in paediatrics. The last thing I have seen is that they are thinking of reducing the 4 years of specialization to 3, and we will see if it is not the beginning of a return to a graduate model, a graduate who is now a graduate, equal to a general. a practitioner with a license to practice as a general practitioner, which is already being done and is at risk of being extended.

But We are also seeing and accepting that things are changing in hospitals.. They seek “excellence”, they seek to dazzle, what is required and encouraged is to have the latest technology, to provide hospitals with great techniques and equipment, those that the manager/politician really likes and which allows news and electioneering. with large openings. Waiting list management has thrown in the towelregardless of the fact that millions of patients wait obscene hours to access a consultation, complementary test or surgical intervention, If, when the time comes, they will be very happy because they work on you with a Da Vinci robot, they apply the latest treatment with a monoclonal antibody or therapy with CAR-T cells.. Everything is constantly changing, we are already aware of it and we have accepted it.

“Awareness has been created and model change is accepted without open debate, everything is changed little by little, through the back door, with the force of facts”

And finally, We are at the beginning of a path in the near future, it is already present in some things, a future/site related to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence applied to medicine. How many family doctors can artificial intelligence replace? It seems impossible that this is so, but there is a change in the traditional family doctor, that close doctor who took care of you throughout your life, devoted time to you, examined you, diagnosed and treated you you, in one person in charge. according to bureaucratic procedures and referral to the hospital, it is possible powerful machines, more electable, with Artificial Intelligence programs that become more complete every day, of course also “inaugural” and “competitive” (remember that their evils/corruptions related to public competitions for the benefit of those we already know), which makes this possible to be closer to reality more or less. And let’s not believe that we will need fewer family doctors or paediatricians because of this Artificial Intelligence every day, it’s just that nobody should be surprised if we see that one day very soon. you arrive at the hospital’s emergency department and an emergency triage nurse no longer doesit will be a machine that will classify the patient and guide the “triadora” machine to where it considers it necessary.

But there is more. I see hospital medical specialties subject to Artificial Intelligence, some based on images, such as radiology, dermatology or pathological anatomy, seriously compromised., not with its complete cancellation, but greatly reduced for specialists who validate the diagnosis issued by the corresponding machine after comparison with an image bank of millions of samples. By the way, specialists who can live in those parts of the world where their salary costs are much lowerLet’s not forget the speed at which image files travel.

Sure, Awareness has been created and model change is accepted without open debate, everything is changed little by little, through the back doorwith force of facts. A new NHS model is upon usa model that I do not accept as valid, while sharing the need for change, especially when it is being imposed without dialogue, without debate, without an assessment of its advantages and disadvantages, which is introduced without professionals and patients , no consensus. , simply by force of facts.

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