MADRID, 4. (EUROPA PRESS)
Five Spanish medical-scientific societies promoted a manifesto under the motto ‘don’t divide health care anymore’ and addressed to the Minister of Health Carolina Darias, as well as to the Ministers of Health and health spokesmen of the parliamentary groups of the Congress and the Senate, against the fragmentation of health care.
Specifically, this manifesto was signed by the Spanish Society of Primary Care Physicians (SEMERGEN), the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (SemFYC), the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG), the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI) and the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, public health and health management (SEMPSPGS).
In the manifesto, these societies demand the creation of special areas of training for infectious diseases and emergencies to avoid the fragmentation of health care and remind that the current Spanish demography shows an aging population with a tendency to increase in the next 20 years.
“Older people accumulate diseases and multimorbidity in the same person is becoming more and more common, and this aging process is not unknown to health workers, more specifically doctors, and a significant number of retirements are expected in the coming years. the tendency of many professionals to emigrate to other countries. Such circumstances cause a general lack of doctors in our country with difficulties in filling vacant positions,” they said.
Likewise, the manifesto states that the aging of the population, multimorbidity and the lack of doctors make specialists with versatile knowledge and adaptability to the changing circumstances of today’s world increasingly necessary. “Any fragmentation of the field of knowledge with the creation of new specialties is against this need and may jeopardize future care for the population,” he emphasized.
Likewise, the manifesto explains that some areas of knowledge, such as emergencies and infectious diseases, are transversal and inherent to all medical specialties. “Other very specific areas could in the future be overtaken by the progress of medicine with the appearance of new therapies and diagnostic procedures, and experts who currently work in certain areas of knowledge such as emergency situations and infectious diseases need formal training and deserve professional recognition”, the associations in to the text.
In addition, they continue, doctors who dedicate themselves to them must have specific knowledge “broader” than that acquired during specialist training. “In the event of future changes in disease epidemiology or advances in knowledge that make their participation unnecessary, they must be allowed to devote themselves to their initial core specialty. This will only be possible if areas of specific training are created. Furthermore, these specific areas of training do not should be in conflict with the specialty program from which they derive,” they asserted.
Due to all of the above, and considering that the creation of new medical specialties must lead to a necessary preliminary reflection on the health model, the signatory societies requested the creation of special areas of training for infectious diseases and emergencies.