The situation is surprising. Medicine and Nursing have once again been the Degrees with the highest cut-off mark at Pevau for access to these disciplines in the University of Cordoba (UCO). The data contrasts with the situation of Andalusian public health, which right now does not have enough nurses to cover the vacancies that occur due to summer vacations and even regularly resorts to medical personnel from other countries to meet the demand of rural areas in the face of the migration of those formed in spain to other countries with better working conditions.
What’s going on? Why is this situation happening? What are the solutions to this contradiction? The health public requires qualified toilets, but the court note has skyrocketed, leaving many out students who want to train for the health professions most in demand today and cannot do so. And those who succeed, in the end, are mostly committed to not exercising their functions outside of Spain for different reasons.
This problem, according to the experts consulted by ABC, has enough explanation. On one side, the demand to study these careers is justified, among others, in the attractiveness of the professions, the social position it grants, the vocation for them and above all the high options of job opportunities. However, public health fails to attract all the staff it needs for its posts.
The reasons are numerous and are connected with the solutions. The specialists in this health issue consider that it is necessary, mostly but not unanimously, for more training places at the University, especially more offers in MIR oppositions, fundamentally to improve the working conditions of these qualified positions, also their remuneration and even promote incentives for rural areas with less demand and with more rotation.
The Dean of Medicine and Nursing, Luis Jiménez
But the debate is open. For example, the dean of the School of Medicine and Nursing at Córdoba, Luis Jiménez, is the one who puts more nuances to that analysis and those generalized solutions, although he agrees on some. In statements to this newspaper, Jiménez believes that “the problem is not the number of doctors and nurses that we train at the University, but the number of vacancies MIR and specialties that are carried out later». Jiménez, in great detail, explains that, precisely, from the educational community everything possible has been done to alleviate this deficit that public health subsequently has.
12,54
Cut-off mark
It is the highest figure for access to any faculty of the University of Córdoba
“We have gone from training to 5,400 doctors a year to 7,200 approximately” in all of Spain, that is, “almost two thousand more”, for which he estimates that “there is not the problem”. In his opinion, he finds that “about 14,000 doctors attend the MIR every year and there are only about 6,000 places, despite the fact that this year the Government has made an extra effort to get 8,100.”
He warns that “the peak of retirements in Andalusia It will be in 2027, so we may find that those who now train in 2022 and finish in 2032, do not have job opportunities ». In his opinion, it is better to “endure these three or four difficult years.”
Inmaculada Romero, of the Medical Union
The general secretary of the Medical Union of Córdoba (Simec), Inmaculada Romero, disagrees. She explains that the cut-off mark it seems “excessive”, so it should “come down with more faculties and with more training places in them, because many students who want to dedicate themselves to health professions do not get to it».
He considers that it is necessary that “in such a humanitarian profession, not only the court grade is taken into account”, but also “other types of assessments” to access the Universidad. As a climax, Romero understands that, logically, also “we must then increase the number of places in the MIR, working conditions and remuneration” that exist in many specialties or places where they work.
Romero insists that from the universities “doctors are being trained very well, but we are doing it for the others, because they prefer to go to the Foreign for better conditions than here, while in rural areas we are incorporating personnel from other places».
The College of Nursing, with Florentino Pérez
The president of the Córdoba College of Nursing, Florentino Pérez, explained yesterday to ABC that if the cut-off mark for nurses is so high, it is as a consequence of the fact that “they are undoubtedly raffled» professionally to occupy their positions in the different options of the public and private health offer.
In this sense, ask for more places university studentssince “now the faculties have the option of taking on 10 percent more students, but it is insufficient,” to which he adds that the demand is also justified “by what has happened in the pandemic.”
2.000
The rise in recent years
The offer of university places in Medicine has grown from 5,400 to 7,200, that is, almost two thousand more in recent years in Spain
In his opinion, the lack of nurses is due to the fact that “working conditions are terrible” and that they are not the same in some autonomous communities as others. Pérez gives the example that «it is not the same Basque Country than Andalusia» in terms of the conditions offered. In fact, he assures that “when the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) is going to hire, 70% of those who finish have gone abroad or to other communities.”
Florentino Pérez emphasizes that these differences they may be in salaries, but they are not the only ones. And he cites that above all “sometimes they offer him two-day contracts, when they have more money abroad and a six-month or one-year contract.” In this sense, he explains the departure of nurses outside our country.
Carmen Arias, president of the College of Physicians
The president of the Córdoba College of Physicians, Carmen Arias, told this newspaper that Medicine It is still the highest cut-off mark in Córdoba, because “the profession is still attractive, vocational and a titanic effort is needed to get a place.” For Arias, the “paradox” comes later “when they see the reality of the situation.”
Arias assures that reality begins “when the expectation of reaching a specialty that was chosen is not met” in the MIR. In his opinion, once inside they also verify that they have limitations to “help as they intend”. The solution for Arias has to do with incentives. “If we want doctors to stay in Spain, go to Family and rural destinations”, the only option is to “improve conditions of all kinds”. Not just the economic ones.
of the possibilities solutions and improvements: «Going to a rural destination or specialty has to give more points to later access a place in another definitive place, allow more conciliation» and, of course, improve remuneration «because the way gasoline is now, for example, who would want to commute daily» to a town.
For Arias, it is vital to “educate the population to avoid assaults» doctors who are on the front line, as well as for rural medicine «to be more finalist» in the place where it is practiced without the need to continuously refer to hospitals. Between the incentivesproposes that they be an easier bridge to access “research and even teaching”.