For two years now, with the pandemic, public attention by the public administration and some private entities has suffered. Now it is more difficult to have fast and personalized attention. The prevention against the disease and the fear of contagion justified new protocols to stop its spread, which leads to slowness in public management.
Without a doubt, the measure that marks the new model of citizen attention is the prior appointment, which is well thought out to organize the influx, but its strict application creates situations that are at least curious. Anyone who goes to an institution or public office without an appointment is simply not attended to, even when there is availability to do so. They don't even let you in. You must return another day with the appointment already arranged, without it there is no solution. In few administrations and at the will of the officials, it is attended without this requirement; yes, after the corresponding scolding.
Thus, we witness the grotesque spectacle of officials not taking care of anyone, corridors empty of public, people in line, who cannot even access because they have not requested the aforementioned appointment. The administration is at the service of the citizens and not the other way around, as seems to be the case these days.
They refer you to an internet address to request it, which is often difficult to access or is collapsed. The same person who prevents you from accessing without an appointment should do the management so that you have it as soon as possible. Older people are being excluded, who have a clear deficit in the use of technologies, the campaign "I'm older, but not stupid" says it all.
On April 20, masks are removed indoors, a sign that the pandemic is receding significantly. As of today, the citizen has the impression that the prior appointment is here to stay, but it is on that date, the time to rethink the system: that the request be managed in situ, by the same person who now prevents you from accessing (not exclusively referring you to the internet) and is attended without it according to availability.
It is the responsibility of the political power to improve the service of the administration to the citizen, adapting the attention to the public to a good level of efficiency that it now lacks.
The famous satirical article, written in 1833 by Mariano José de Larra, "Come back tomorrow", which so well portrayed the administration of the time, is still valid today, but replaced by "You cannot pass without an appointment".
Eduardo Núñez González.
