A union representing healthcare professionals in the Lanzarote Health Area has publicly denounced that "basic primary and hospital care consultations are being eliminated," that "personnel substitutions are being withdrawn," and that this directly worsens "waiting lists, the control of chronic patients, and the speed of diagnoses."
Thus, they have pointed out that the Lanzarote Health Services Management has implemented a series of cuts that, in the opinion of the professionals, represent "a progressive dismantling of care services that the population had been receiving and that affect both primary and hospital care."
Among the measures adopted, they have publicly criticized:
- Suppression of primary care consultations. "High-value consultations for the population that were provided in health centers, including those for ultrasound, breastfeeding support, obesity management, and Dermatology, are being eliminated," they have reported. "These are services that brought healthcare closer to the population, which will now have to be referred, delayed, or simply will no longer be offered," they added.
- Elimination of reinforcement consultations and substitutions. "Consultations aimed at reducing waiting lists for family medicine, pediatrics, and urology, precisely those that served to decongest the care schedule, are being suppressed," they indicated.
- Medical consultations that expedited the processing and monitoring of sick leave (temporary incapacity) are being suppressed.
- Substitutions for all healthcare personnel are being suppressed, so that each absence will translate into a direct overload on the rest of the team and a decrease in care.
- Elimination of the diabetes nursing consultation. They warn that "the specialized diabetes nursing consultation, a key piece in health education, control, and monitoring of one of the largest groups of chronic patients in the Area, is disappearing."
- Cuts in the hospital setting: they warn that "absences and vacations of personnel in Pathological Anatomy, a service on which the analysis of biopsies and samples depends, and therefore the speed of diagnosis (including oncological diagnosis), will not be covered. Therefore, they assure that absences and vacations of nursing assistants in the hospital's outpatient clinics will not be replaced, with the consequent deterioration of the functioning of the consultations and patient care.
Finally, CCOO has pointed out that these "cuts" have consequences for the local population. "We warn that the cumulative effect of these measures will be an increase in waiting lists, a loss of prevention services and chronic patient monitoring, a delay in time-sensitive diagnoses —such as those dependent on Pathological Anatomy— and a growing overload of staff, which will inevitably affect the quality and safety of care".
"These cuts do not affect ancillary items: they touch the heart of the care that Lanzarote patients receive. Suppressing consultations, ceasing to replace staff, and not covering critical areas such as Pathological Anatomy means longer waits, worse monitoring, and later diagnoses," they have warned.
Therefore, they have demanded from the Management of Health Services of Lanzarote the immediate reversal of these measures, the reinstatement of consultations and staff replacements, and the opening of a real dialogue with the workers to guarantee quality public healthcare for the entire island population.