One of the basic things that the newcomer learns when moving to Spain is that they must insure themselves twice.
On the one hand, you have to start contributing to Social Security, for emergencies and major health issues.
And, on the other, you should rush to take out private insurance for routine checkups.
The second thing that is learned is that the treatment received by doctors in this country is usually terrible. And in this there are no distinctions between the public and the private.
Demonstration called in Madrid against the management of public health.
EFE
It is not enough to have obtained an appointment. You have to deserve it. The would-be patient must develop various acting skills for the general practitioner to pay attention to him, agree to prescribe the tests he needs or refer him to a specialist. Another essential survival trick, which several friends have recommended to me, is to lose your shame and go to the ER even for a cold.
If this is the case in relatively small cities like Malaga, which is where I live, I don’t want to imagine what it will be like in Madrid. For this reason, it is not surprising that there has been a large demonstration in protest of the state of public health, like the one that took place there this Sunday. What is truly strange is that there is not a protest like this, every week, in all regions of the country.
In this sense, I have been surprised by the statements of Isabel Diaz Ayusowho stated, words more, words less, that the demonstration was not in defense of public health, but a Trojan horse from the ultra-left to position a new leadership in the capital.
It is evident that demonstrations of this type are never completely spontaneous and that they will always be taken advantage of by the media and politically by whoever is in opposition at that moment.
[Tras la Sanidad llega la Educación: la izquierda agita ahora la calle contra Ayuso por la concertada]
However, in this case, the underlying problem is real. You wait for months to get a medical appointment, the usual mistreatment by many doctors, doubtful or openly wrong diagnoses and a long etcetera. This from the point of view of citizenship.
From that of the medical union, the panorama is even more bleak. Thousands of Spanish doctors, trained in Spain, have emigrated in recent years to other countries attracted by better and more dignified working conditions. The deficit of practitioners today is more than 5,000. And according to recent statements by Javier Millanof the Spanish Society of Emergency and Emergency Medicine, by the year 2027 the deficit of doctors could reach the figure of 9,000.
These are the undeniable signs of a structural failure that affects health services throughout Spain and for which no single government can be held responsible. The annoyance over the crisis in public health is genuine and it is absurd to attribute it to a kind of Sion protocol, as Ayuso has done.
While this is happening in the Community of Madrid, those of the central government are marching in an opposite direction, but equally worrying. If Ayuso is seeing ultra-leftist conspiracies everywhere, Pedro Sanchezin his infinite genuflection towards the Catalan independence movement, now wants to modify the Penal Code to eliminate the crime of sedition.
Thus, seeing seditions where there are none, or denying through legislation those that have occurred, the PP and the PSOE continue to play their game of tennis, with a view to the municipal and regional elections that will be held on May 28, 2023. After these, the general elections will come. And there, the politicking circus begins again.
In this game, the population is not the audience, I’m afraid. It is the increasingly battered ball, which sometimes falls to the left and sometimes to the right.
