As happened during the first wave of coronavirus, when they offered to collaborate to lighten the enormous workload that weighed on the health system, future doctors once again reach out to the Ministry of Health, in this case to help mitigate the ‘bureaucratic collapse’ in Primary Care centers. The message is clear: “If necessary, we will go tomorrow,” they say from the State Council of Medical Students (CEEM), who nevertheless consider that it is not a specific problem but a structural one, and they add that they would Red lines in negotiation.
In this sense, Alex Boada, Vice President of External Affairs of CEEM, emphasizes that Medicine students cannot become “cheap labor” to bail out the health system when it comes to doing the ‘paperwork’.
“For our part there would be no problem, but certain premises must be met, which are those of do not do care tasks and that the degree we have is taken into account. At the end of the day, we have a training to follow, and balancing everything is complicated even for mental health ”, he highlights.
On the possibility that this work can be rewarded through remuneration or even with points for Public Job Offers (OPE), Boada emphasizes that they are options that “should be valued”, although he considers that this is not the main obstacle in the process.
The truth is that some territories are already considering having toilets in training to alleviate the workload of the Health services. In the case of Catalonia, the director of the Servei Català de Salut, Gemma Craywinckel, recently announced that nearly 300 Medicine and Nursing students would provide their services in Primary Care centers.
“Real needs” of the SNS
In any case, from the CEEM they insist that it is a fundamental problem that has affected health services from the very beginning of the health crisis. So he thinks Luciana Nechifor, president of the organization, who maintains that the collaboration of students with the health services in exchange for points in the OPE or remuneration is a “controversial” topic.
“You have to take it very carefully, because We cannot be in the same situation as in 2020 ”, says Nechifor, who adds that in recent years “what were the real needs” of health centers have not been addressed.
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