Seville, October 9 (European News Agency) –
The CCOO, CSIF and UGT unions ask the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) to provide “sufficient” personnel to cope with the dual vaccination campaign against influenza and Covid-19 that starts this Monday in residences and centers for disabled or elderly people . The event has been going on for 85 years. “Don’t further burden a flawed and exhausted workforce.”
Therefore, in the audio distributed to the media, Daniel Gutiérrez from the SAS Alliance Action Area of the Andalusian CCOO Federation of Health and Social Hygiene Sectors noted that the campaign was started in “very difficult” circumstances. Public Health Andalusia “increases delays in primary care after a summer of cuts in health care activities and closures of agendas.”
“We continue to experience a situation where many health centers have been without appointments for more than two weeks, and the situation is complicated by the loss of hundreds of COVID-19 contracts and the saturation of professional staff,” he said, adding that the Ministry of Health “hopes that the vaccine will be A 7.5% increase in volume is a laudable goal, but appropriate means must be provided for this and not further burdensome on scarce and exhausted staff.
The CSIF health department asked for “sufficient” personnel to be available for all categories involved in the activity, “from the guard drivers who work in the warehouses to provide vaccines and materials and transport the vaccines, to the administrative staff of the customers” at the service points within the health centers that provide consultation to the population , such as TCAE, nurses and doctors. “These activities mean an increased workload for all of them,” he commented.
For their part, the UGT criticized the vaccination campaign for a “lack” of human resources, which they argued represented “another distortion in our saturated primary care, which is already in a precarious position, with delays to consultations taking at least 10-15 days, a far cry from the 48-72 hours that consulting services marketed to us.
Furthermore, in October when “probably less than half of the potential 12,000” were available, contracts in all categories “disappeared” in all centres. “The situation is getting worse and this is another step to justify the privatization of services and the increase in concert fees,” said the Secretary of the Employees’ Federation of Health, Social Health Services and Dependencies. Public Service of the University of Andalusia (FeSP) Antonio Macías.
In a statement to Euronews, he added that in addition to the “increase” in workload, “we must also add an increase in specific illnesses at future dates” and that “this is combined with a reduction in temporary staff whose contracts have not yet been renewed.” consistent”. He concluded: “This will lead to an increase in waiting lists, which unfortunately are already increasing and are a far cry from the idyllic two or three days that only exist in the imaginations of our counselors.”
Last week, Andalusia’s Satse nursing union demanded that SAS have the necessary nursing professionals to take on this work without reducing the rest of the health center’s daily nursing activities or “overloading” its staff. This is even more true this year, with the number of vaccinations increasing by 7.5% compared to the previous term, reaching 2.2 million doses.
Satse considered it “vital” to strengthen the nursing workforce and hire dedicated personnel to carry out the campaign, which was added to the bronchiolitis campaign for children under six months old that started on September 25.