As the Minister of Health recently stated, Carolina Dariasthe Ministry is ready to respond to the needs from template that each requires specialty medical at the moment and in a future marked by him generational change. Among them, one of those that presents a more than deficient situation is Anesthesiologywhere there is a remarkable deficit from professionals in most of the autonomous communities.
The president of the Spanish Society of Anesthesiology, Revival and Pain Therapy (Sedar) and head of the Anesthesiology Service of the Iron Gate Hospital, Javier Garciaconfirm in Medical Writing that one of the main problems lies in the inequality existing between communities: “From Sedar we are starting a National Register of needs of anesthesiologists by different autonomous communities. Some of them, such as in Madrid, there is a very high offer of MIR vacancies due to the fact that a lot of training was traditionally generated here. So you see the need for anesthesiologists as of now does not cover the demandand instead you go to other regions like Murcia, Andalusia, Catalonia… where does it exist a current deficit.”
Garcia insists that the problem does not lie in the futurebut is already existing in Spain: “Right now there is already a lack of anesthesiologists. It happens especially in many county hospitals. There are some to date who can only act for emergenciessince there are not enough anesthesiologists to open all the operating rooms that have been built”.
Emigration of anesthesiologists to other countries
The anesthesiologist has agreed with the report issued by the Minister of Health, although it recognizes that there is certain information of vital importance that does not appear detailed: “There is a great value capture What is Europe doing? Is exponential the number of anesthesiologists who are leaving because the new generations have more facilities to know English, French or even German because they have a much higher salary level. Countries like France, Portugal or England, their gross wage bill is 35 percent more than in Spain”.
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“There is a great capture of value that Europe is doing” |
Thus, the president of Sedar confirms that “the generational change and the retirements are not the only factors that directly affect this specialty, but we must add the large number of anesthesiologists who will be trained in Spain and who will eventually work abroad”. Despite this, García has highlighted that “the MIR training on Europe and in Spain they have a high level of knowledge, since they are specialists who are received with open hands”.
García affirms that from the institution he presides over “we advise an increase in 20 percent of training places of anesthesia. Within 5 years, a significant drop is expected due to the retirement of doctors, and it takes between four and five years to train a resident. We cannot wait to start increasing the training places”.
More budget to generate more anesthesiologists
The National Commission of Anesthesiologists has been working all this time, being aware of the reality of the specialty, coming up against a new obstacleas the anesthesiologist assures: “Now there is more places accredited and hospitals that they can form of those who are really granted. Right now it could be increased to 450 places without any problem because they are accredited. Furthermore, they could accredit more hospitals to train more anesthesiologists. The problem is not training capacity, it is budgetary. The training of the MIR is initially paid for by the Ministry of Health, but really the health care problem depends on the Ministry of Health of each autonomous community. They are the communities that decide to prioritize one specialty or another.”
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“The problem is not training capacity, it is budgetary” |
Thus, the dilemma that Anesthesiology has encountered is knowing Who pays Now this extra training. Despite being aware that it is a political solutionthe anesthesiologist considers that “it would be necessary to generate a budget, either from the ministry or from the autonomous communities, in order to train more anesthesiologists. In the last call there 398 placesbut we would have the capacity to form 440. It makes no sense to increase the number of accredited places when the ones that already exist are not even used”.
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