“Would it be put on the table that doctors of the hospital specialties will increase the number of patients they see in a day from 20 to 60 to reduce waiting lists? If it’s not seen as viable for them, it shouldn’t be viable for us either”, affirms a resounding family doctor who denounces that the professionals in his specialty are “working piecemeal”. Fed up with the situation, he stands up and says: “That’s enough.”
Fernando Ramirezfamily doctor in Andalusiaexplains in statements to Medical Writing that it is important to “vindicate the importance of primary attention doctor“. It states that it has been ‘normalized’ that “Family medicine may be working piecework without a minimum of quality. If you have to attend 80 patients in one day, let it be done and it doesn’t matter”.
The doctor believes that the problem of Primary It is focusing more on some communities, but insists that “the situation is the same throughout the territory and everything has already exploded.” In his vindication, he assures that there is a general complaint if the “family doctor it takes a week to have appointments available, but for the patient who may have such a bad suspicion of cancer, the delay in Primary Care like the one he later has in the hospital specialty”.
Thus, health center professionals are required to “quickly address any issue of whatever nature, from the most banal to the most serious. But we also have to have the ability to address red tape“, even those that by law are the responsibility of other specialists. “It is legislated that sick leave is processed by the doctor at the level of care that treats the patient, but in many hospitals do not have computer systems to manage it and it keeps coming to us”. Therefore, he warns that he and his companions will stand on April 1.
“If April 1 arrives and the doctors in hospital specialties of the resources necessary to address this management, we will stand up and not process another withdrawal. Our level is as important as the hospital level “, he defends.
Crossing of accusations between doctors
Despite the fact that his intention has not been more than to highlight the problems of Primary Care and the reasons for the protests of this group, the truth is that his comment on Twitter has not been well received by doctors in hospital specialties. In response to his message, they defend themselves against what they consider to have been an “attack”.
What process is there in Primary that cannot wait a few days and yet for the Hospital it can wait months? Family doctors must see 60 patients/day to avoid delays? Well, let the hospital doctors do it too to end the waiting lists, right?
— fernando ramirez gom (@fernandomrg77) January 25, 2023
“If you think the hospital doctors we are livers and we are not overloaded and under pressure is that you have not stepped on one since you finished your residency”, points out a neurologist among other colleagues who have not detected the irony of this specialist either.
And for those who do not want to understand the irony and that this is to make visible the mistreatment of the Primary (and change it) and not an attack on the hospital… scratch it!
— fernando ramirez gom (@fernandomrg77) January 26, 2023
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