PP told to amend Spain’s health staffing reform

Spain’s Health Minister Mónica García is challenging the Partido Popular to table changes to every part of the Estatuto Marco health staffing reform it opposes. Speaking in Madrid’s Congress of Deputies on Wednesday, 16 September, she said the bill’s arrival in parliament starts, rather than ends, the political fight.

García said laws are debated, amended, passed or rejected in the chamber, not in a ministerial office. She said the ministry had put forward its reform and that the PP must now take responsibility during the parliamentary process.

Row over 24-hour shifts and staffing

The minister singled out the proposed end to 24-hour shifts, asking which measures the PP intends to oppose. She also said the Estatuto Marco would require Spain’s autonomous communities to strengthen their staffing levels.

García accused regions governed by the PP of resisting that obligation and rejecting proposed improvements for health workers. She said they had asked privately for the reforms benefiting staff to be withdrawn.

One framework for all health workers

García again rejected the idea of a separate statute solely for doctors. Doctors work in multidisciplinary teams, she said, and depend on good conditions for nurses, auxiliary technicians, biologists, psychologists, engineers and researchers as well.

Coalición Canaria MP Cristina Valido called for professional reclassification across several health occupations, including auxiliary nursing care technicians. She also pressed for a career system allowing yearly access to each grade, with funding guaranteed by the state through new national budgets.

Topics: Jobs & labour · Health · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com