2024-01-08 20:05:28
The Ministry of Health will impose the mandatory use of masks in hospitals and health centers starting Wednesday in the face of the escalation of flu infections, as Efe announced this Monday followingnoon and the department headed by Mónica García confirmed to EL PAÍS. . A few hours earlier, in the morning, the majority of the autonomous communities had opposed the measure in an extraordinary Interterritorial Council of the National Health System, and had opted for the recommendation. Only six had decided to apply it so far.
Health has not waited the 48 hours that it had…
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The Ministry of Health will impose the mandatory use of masks in hospitals and health centers starting Wednesday in the face of the escalation of flu infections, as Efe announced this Monday followingnoon and the department headed by Mónica García confirmed to EL PAÍS. . A few hours earlier, in the morning, the majority of the autonomous communities had opposed the measure in an extraordinary Interterritorial Council of the National Health System, and had opted for the recommendation. Only six had decided to apply it so far.
Health has not waited the 48 hours that it had given to the autonomies to present allegations to a proposal that the department itself made this morning. The ministry has explained that it will take a declaration of coordinated actions to equalize protection once morest respiratory viruses for all citizens and legally protect the communities that have already implemented it.
The responsibility of imposing mandatory masks in health centers had been assumed by the communities themselves: some were applying it and others were not. The six that already had it in place or had just implemented it are the Valencian Community (governed by the PP and Vox); Catalonia (ERC); Murcia (PP); Aragón (PP), which initially imposed them for healthcare workers and has expanded them to patients in waiting rooms; Canarias (CC), which announced it this Monday, and Asturias (PSOE), which has also communicated the measure following the council and which, if applicable, will be in force for 15 days. Health had lowered its initial idea of also imposing them in social health centers and pharmacies, where it now asks that they be simply a recommendation.
The legal format used by the ministry is unprecedented to impose the use of masks. During the pandemic, it had been the central government that had regulated its mandatory nature in different spaces, but through decree laws. The last one that maintained masks in health centers, social health centers and pharmacies was repealed five months ago. On this occasion, Health ensures that it is protected by article 65 of the law on cohesion and quality of the National Health System, which regulates the declaration of coordinated actions in public health and that “obliges all parties” included in it. Sources from the department justify that the only spaces that are contemplated now are hospitals and health centers and that it is the only way for regional governments to enforce the rule with legal guarantees.
Meeting of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System this Monday, in Madrid. Mº of Health (Mº of Health EFE)
The majority of the communities had made it clear this morning that they were once morest the obligation. With different political colors, at least Andalusia, Galicia, Madrid, La Rioja, Navarra, Cantabria, Castilla y León and the Balearic Islands (governed by the PP), Euskadi (PNV) and Castilla-La Mancha (PSOE) have made their rejection public. Many of them have asked the ministry for technical criteria to make a decision.
The counselor of Madrid, Fátima Matute (PP), assured that her position and that of the majority of the council is to maintain the use of masks responsibly in the cases that are already indicated. “And of course, that is what we are going to continue applying with scientific rigor and with the evidence provided by the data we have in each community to protect our population.” she said following the meeting.
The Minister of Health of Castilla-La Mancha, the socialist Jesús Fernández Sanz, maintained a similar thesis and communicated that his department’s proposal is that masks are not mandatory, but that the recommendation be maintained “appealing to the responsibility of the population”. He also requested that a meeting be held of the Alerts Report (made up of technicians) and the Public Health Commission (made up of the directors of the ministry and the autonomies) “so that the technicians are the ones who propose the measures.”
It is a reproach that the Minister of Health of Murcia, Juan José Pedreño, also launched at the minister, who regretted that Health “arrived late” and called a proposal that has not gone through the aforementioned technical bodies as an “occurrence.” “Given the high incidence of flu and respiratory viruses, the regional government has already taken prevention and control measures, without the ministry having carried out consultations or being interested in the evolution of the autonomous communities,” he stated.
Some of the communities that reject the obligation, such as La Rioja, suggest that the mask only be imposed in health centers if certain thresholds of incidence of respiratory viruses are reached, although they have not established what these metrics should be.
García’s proposal is, however, widely supported in the health sector: both medical-scientific societies and professional representatives believe that masks should be kept in health centers during epidemic times like the current one. CSIF, the most representative union in public administrations, reproaches the Ministry of Health and regional officials for their inability to reach an agreement on the measures to be adopted and requests the reinforcement of staff and the mandatory nature of face masks. The General Nursing Council has also ruled in favor, considering that the latter may be a temporary preventive measure that minimizes the peak of infections due to respiratory infections expected for the coming days.
Auto-discharges to unclog the Primary
In addition to this debate, the minister, Mónica García, has informed the council that she is studying approving that citizens with a minor illness have the possibility of taking sick leave with a responsible self-declaration during the first three days of disability. It is a measure that medical societies have been demanding for years to relieve the burden on health centers and that the ministry is now weighing with the rise in the winter epidemic of respiratory viruses, particularly influenza.
The Ministry of Health is negotiating with the Ministry of Social Security the form and time to implement them, according to sources from the department headed by García. The minister explained that in many other countries the system already works in this way, and that, in the same way that the citizen declares his illness to the doctor (even when this has happened to obtain sick leave), he can do so responsibly. without a health professional being involved, which can save time for more necessary care tasks.
Some communities, such as Aragón, have already rejected this measure, while medical societies, which had been asking for it for some time, have applauded it. This is the case of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG), whose spokesperson for the Occupational Health group, Francisco Sáez, has told Efe that “what does not make sense is that a worker with the flu or a cold has “Running to the health center to have a sick leave signed is nonsense and absurd,” but it also “overloads” health centers that are already saturated.
Paulino Cubero, spokesperson for the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), states along the same lines: “As is done in other countries, the last being Portugal in 2023, sick leave of between one and three days might justify themselves by electronic means between the patient and his company, so that many unnecessary visits would be avoided in self-limiting processes, such as colds, gastrointestinal episodes, migraines, dysmenorrhea and other minor processes that do not require a medical diagnosis.
To clear the collapse of primary care, however, imminent measures are necessary. The flu epidemic is skyrocketing: in the absence of more recent data, which will be published on Thursday, infections rose by 75% in the last week of the year. Experts predicted that it would continue to increase, given that following those dates there have been numerous family and festive celebrations that facilitate the spread of the virus.
Although it cannot be determined when the peak will arrive, specialists predict that cases will begin to decrease around the second half of the month. The impact of the flu, furthermore, is not only affecting health centers: emergencies are saturated in many areas of Spain and some hospital plants, such as those in the Valencian Community, one of those with the highest incidence, are already suffering. strain.
Finally, the Interterritorial Council on Monday addressed the implementation of a winter plan for future seasons of viral epidemics. It would be a joint and coordinated action from the moment the first infections begin, to try to avoid collapses like those seen this year.
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