The cost of imposing Catalan: 1,000 euros per guard to doctors

The imposition of Catalan in Balearic health has a high cost for the coffers of the Government that he presides over Francina Armengol who is forced to pay up to 1,000 euros per 24-hour guard to doctors to fill the vacancies generated, above all, by the linguistic dictatorship. As an example, Every weekend the Ministry of Health transfers intensive care doctors from the Mateo Orfila Hospital from Menorca to Mallorca to cover the shortcomings in the ICU of the Inca Hospital. Each guardian is paid 1,000 euros gross.

What happens is that in the Inca Hospital there are vacancies in the ICU and there is no way to cover the weekends. The decision that has been made is to offer extra 24-hour shifts to intensive care workers at Mateo Orfila in Menorca at a cost of 1,000 euros. The same is happening at the Can Misses Hospital in Ibiza, with a large deficit of doctors and nurses.

The Minister of Health, Patricia Gomez, has affirmed on several occasions that no doctor has stopped coming to the Balearic Islands due to the imposition of Catalan, since this requirement is currently not required in the face of the health emergency situation. The reality is that the lack of doctors comes from the years in which Catalan has been compulsory and comes, above all, from the imposition of Catalan in all areas of Balearic society.

A doctor from the peninsula, from a community that is not Catalan-speaking, hardly accepts coming to work in the Balearic Islands accompanied by his family knowing that his children, where appropriate, will be forced to study 100% of the subjects in Catalan.

At the end of last year, and given the threat of a strike by Primary Care doctors, the agreement was signed between the Government and all the unions, the main agreement being the increase in the price of the hour on call, which grows by 10% and stands at 31.05 euros. They are at least 745 euros per 24-hour guard, the highest price in all of Spain. The price increases in case the guard is on a holiday and when it involves the transfer from one island to another. It also increases after the fifth guard. In general, the guard is increased up to 1,000 euros gross.

Another agreed economic measure is aimed at building loyalty for resident doctors from Menorca, Eivissa and Formentera who will receive 4,800 euros if they join the staff for a minimum of three years. If they come from abroad, the stipulated amount is 2,400 euros.

hospital collapse

The lack of professionals in the Balearic health has serious consequences. As OKDIARIO has been telling, The Emergency Department of the Inca Hospital and the reference hospital in the Balearic Islands, Son Espases, have been collapsed these weeks due to the increase in patients, preferably with respiratory diseases, and the lack of personnel. For several days, the management of the Inca Hospital has been forced to close the center due to the arrival of new ambulances and patients from the north of Mallorca due to the impossibility of treating them.

Recently the association Patient Advocate has requested the intervention of the Prosecutor’s Office in the face of the “borderline situation” experienced by the ER and intensive care units (ICU) of the Son Espases University Hospital (Palma).

Through a statement, the association stated that the situation “is serious” and that it is the health workers themselves “who denounce a neglect of functions and a lack of respect for patients and professionals, without moving a finger for a solution.”

In this sense, the superior prosecutor of the Balearic Islands, Bartomeu Barceló, to intervene to “save lives”. “Their involvement is essential for the safety of patients and the tranquility and calm of professionals,” the statement concluded.

At the beginning of Christmas, the president of the Balearic Medical Union, Miguel Lazaro, It highlighted “the great overload” of work for health professionals in these areas of the hospital due to “the peak” of respiratory infections.

Given this, Simebal insisted that it must be “sayed again and again that there is a lack of socio-sanitary planning” that allows these patients to be drained.

“We lack resources or socio-sanitary beds and it should be a priority in the Government’s health investments and a budgetary effort”, he stated to underline that the situation at the Son Llàtzer Hospital “is similar”, so it is expected that there will be problems in hospital care in the midst of a wave of respiratory virus infections coinciding with the arrival of winter.

While all this is happening, the Government of Armengol continues to focus solely on the conflict generated by the exemption of the Catalan requirement for doctors and nurses in the process of converting health professionals to permanent status. The Més independentistas do not accept this exemption and have opened a government crisis.