The agreement signed in Madrid between the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party that will make Paulino Rivero president of the Government of the Canary Islands includes in its health section the reduction of the maximum waiting times in surgical interventions "guaranteeing waits of no more than two months." In addition, the agreement implies "reducing waiting times for complementary tests and specialist consultations, guaranteeing waits of no more than one month."
The Ministry of Health is one of the areas that has corresponded to the Popular Party, and the until recently deputy in Congress Mercedes Roldós sounds like the name already agreed to lead this department. In this sense, the PP insisted during the electoral campaign on reducing the maximum waiting period in public health to two months to undergo surgery, and its candidate, José Manuel Soria, stated that when this period was exceeded, patients would be operated on in private health care, always at the expense of the Ministry's budget.
In the agreement signed this Wednesday by Rajoy, Soria and Rivero, the agreement specifies that "they will continue to use both their own and contracted resources to comply" with these maximum times, and even commits to continuing to include in the regional accounts "a specific budget for the reduction of waiting lists, doubling its amount at a minimum."
The pact also includes the commitment of nationalists and populars to continue providing information on waiting lists, promoting the personalized information telephone line launched a few months ago. The document, which contains five pages specifically dedicated to health, guarantees that the proposals contained in the Social Pact for Health signed in May 2006 will be promoted and developed.
Regarding the clear lack of doctors in the Archipelago, the CC-PP pact agrees to demand from the Government of Spain the increase in the number of students of Health Sciences in the two Canarian universities and to promote the suppression of the current limitations for access to these careers. In addition, a reform and modernization of the current MIR system will also be required from the State to adapt it to the needs of professionals in the Autonomous Communities.
The pact also seeks to gradually increase the staff of Primary Care in accordance with population growth and with respect to professionals, it commits to guaranteeing a public job offer every two years for the statutory personnel of the Canarian Health Service.
With regard to improving care for citizens, the agreement commits to "continue implementing the electronic medical record in health centers and hospitals, digitized access to imaging studies, electronic prescriptions, telemedicine, etc.", with which, since most of these processes are currently in implementation, the agreement takes for granted that in the next legislature its implementation will be completed in 100 percent of the Canarian Autonomous Community".
In Primary Care, on the other hand, the agreement commits to providing health centers with "retinographs, spirometers and ultrasound machines, as well as any other diagnostic test that may be necessary." On the other hand, the agreement implies the implementation of a new Oral Health Program, which will mean increasing the Service Portfolio of the Public System in the Canary Islands, guaranteeing assistance to minors and those over 65 years of age. For this, they point out, "periodic check-ups will be agreed with the Associations of Dentists through professionals with private activity in all the municipalities that want to participate and are previously accredited".
HEALTH FINANCING
In addition to a set of measures to be applied in the autonomous community, the pact also advances what its position will be in the distribution of health financing. Thus, the agreement specifies that the Central Government will be required to increase health financing for the Canary Islands "responding to the increase in population, the cost of insularity, double insularity and the cost derived from the assistance provided from the Canary Islands to displaced patients, the tourist population and immigrants".
In addition, the Government of Spain will also be asked to "increase public health spending by 1 percent of GDP to reach the level of spending of European countries in our environment." Conservatives and nationalists affirm that they will defend the need "for a State Pact for Health in which the necessary agreements are established "that ensure sufficient health financing, cohesion, equity and the governability and sustainability of the
national health system".
ACN Press
