“The applause we received in March 2020 is now turning into protests, insults and even aggression. In Lanzarote, thank God, we have not reached that last point, but we have reached the protests”. This is how doctor Agustín González, who is a member of the management team of Primary Care on the island, lamented the situation that health workers are experiencing throughout Spain.
“We are tired of working, we are tired of the waves and we are sometimes tired of the misunderstanding of some people”, he pointed out on Radio Lanzarote – Onda Cero.
Specifically, he referred to people who “do not understand that they are not treated immediately”; or who do not accept the current protocol, which has eliminated the tracking of close contacts, who are no longer tested if they do not have symptoms. In fact, antigen tests and PCRs are not even being performed on all patients who come in with symptoms.
“Right now, the problem is that we don't do a test for the reason that the doctor deems appropriate, and what you want is for the test to be done, regardless of what the doctor thinks”, González questioned.
In addition, he believes that during this Christmas there has been “the perfect storm”, since there were no tests in pharmacies either. “A large percentage of the people who went to the emergency room were due to the anxiety of getting a test”, he pointed out.
Now, he celebrates that a measure “that should have been taken before” by the central government has finally been approved, and that it will mean “forcing to lower the price” of those tests that can be purchased in pharmacies.
Regarding the current perception of health workers, he believes that there is unfair treatment by some people. In this regard, he referred to the criticism that was generated after a group of doctors from Malaga became infected at a Christmas meal. “People criticized and pretended that we could not go to dinner, so that we would be on our feet the next day to attend to those who did go to dinner”, he reproached.
Regarding the situation that is being experienced in Lanzarote, which this Tuesday has once again registered a record of confirmed infections in one day, he pointed out that they still do not know “where the limit may be”.
“Now we are catching the end of the year leftovers”, he pointed out, emphasizing that it remains to evaluate the consequences of the last holiday of Kings. “There is talk of the end of January as the limit”, he advanced, trusting that this wave marked by the Ómicron variant will follow the same path as South Africa, where “the affection was much less, the deaths were less and now it is decreasing”. “These are hopes that it gives us”, he added.
