The Simebal medical union issued a warning today, Monday, about the ‘critical’ situation of emergency services in the Balearics and called on the population to go to primary care first ‘so as not to overwhelm the system unnecessarily.’ It also called on the administration to provide the necessary human and material resources ‘to guarantee safe and dignified care.’
In a statement, the union stressed that ‘once again this summer’ hospital and out-of-hospital emergency services are suffering from ‘chronic saturation, overwork and a lack of medical staff’ and that it is thanks to the ‘dedication, vocation and sacrifice’ of the medical staff that ‘an increasingly strained system’ is being sustained.
Simebal has thanked all healthcare professionals in the emergency services for their efforts, as well as the SUAPs and ‘the overcrowded and mistreated Primary Care services’. Regarding the emergency situation, they said that the current situation reflects a lack of foresight, strategy and planning on the part of healthcare managers. ‘Work overload, excessive waiting times, a lack of beds for admission, exhausted professionals and the collapse of emergency services are not new phenomena. They are chronic and recurring problems that, summer after summer, are repeated without any effective structural measures being taken,’ they stressed.
They regret that emergency rooms have become a new gateway to the healthcare system, ‘while primary care is falling apart due to a lack of resources and professionals,’ which, according to them, means that nearly 50% of cases that should be handled in primary care end up in emergency rooms.
They point out that Son Espases handles between 450 and 500 emergencies per day, and up to 14,000 emergencies per month. In addition, during the summer, the number of patients awaiting admission can exceed fifty, and the wait to be admitted to a ward ranges from two to three days.
‘It is unacceptable that there are so many patients awaiting admission,’ they said, before asserting that this situation ‘seriously compromises the humanisation of care, deteriorates the quality of care and creates an undignified environment.’ Son Llàtzer is operating at 80% capacity, with an average of 300 emergencies per day, a wait of one to three days for admission to the ward and around 9,000 emergencies attended per month. In addition, they add that only one additional staff member has been hired this summer. ‘No one wants to work in these conditions,’ they say.
The same, they say, is happening in the regional hospitals of Inca and Manacor, which are also experiencing an increase in population and a lack of resources. Manacor Hospital treats between 280 and 300 emergencies per day, with 15 or more patients waiting to be admitted each day. The 12 treatment rooms have been operating at double capacity for more than five years.
According to them, Menorca and Ibiza are currently coping better with the summer overload, as the organisational measures adopted have been different. Menorca has not closed any beds and, in both hospitals, waiting times for admission to the ward do not exceed 24 hours. However, the pattern is the same when it comes to new hires, as no doctors can be found who are willing to work in the emergency department under the conditions offered.
‘The problems are exacerbated by the shortage of social healthcare beds,’ they explain, before detailing that in Mallorca, the closure of the Virgen de la Salud Hospital during the summer and the chronic saturation of the Joan March Hospital further aggravate the lack of places for this type of patient.
‘It is incomprehensible that during the months when the floating population is at its highest, beds are closed or services are not adequately reinforced. Furthermore, pathologies no longer follow seasonal patterns: alongside the multiple traumas and poisonings typical of summer, there is an increase in cases of elderly people suffering from heat exhaustion,’ they report.
They point out that this ‘pressure’ is compounded by the fact that fewer and fewer doctors are willing to work under the conditions offered to them. Many professionals feel that the problem is becoming chronic, so that ‘if the emergency services collapse, the health system will collapse’.
‘The current situation cannot fall on the health and personal sacrifice of doctors every year. The overload is not only work-related: it causes deep emotional exhaustion and a general feeling of helplessness,’ warns Simebal, who also calls for the entire hospital to be involved in solving the problem, ‘because it is not the sole responsibility of the emergency services.’