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“My professional conditions in Baleares they were better, but I would never consider going back as long as they continue to demand Catalan ”. Three years ago, Sofía (not her real name because she prefers to remain anonymous) and her partner, both doctors, decided to leave the islands when the government headed by the socialist Francina Armengol began to demand Catalan as a requirement to obtain a place in the health of the Islands. “In the Balearic Islands I had more resources and more time per patient, but I don’t regret having left. I still firmly believe that they are wrong and that with this imposition they will make the Balearic Islands unattractive to practice medicine ”.
Like her, several health professionals returned to the Peninsula when the requirement of Catalan was reflected by decree in March 2018. “Here life passes without extra stress in the environment, which with what we have at work is enough,” acknowledges another specialist doctor from his Asturias native. The pandemic has paralyzed the exodus of professionals but has also increased the problems of the Balearic Islands to hire doctors and nurses. As fewer and fewer come from the Peninsula, it is necessary to resort to foreigners who, in some cases, do not have the approved title. And to top it all, the Catalanism of the Islands has mobilized this week to demand more presence of Catalan in health. The pressure has been such that the Government has decided to expedite any health worker who receives a complaint for linguistic reasons. In the soaked Balearic sanitation, it never stops raining.
It all started on August 30 when the journalist Bartomeu Font, through his Twitter account, denounced that a doctor from the health center of Son Pisà, in Palma, he had “refused to understand” his 79-year-old mother in Catalan. “As a citizen, I demand a rectification of this lack of respect for Majorcans”, claimed. Two tweets were enough to ignite the Catalanism of Baleares: in a few hours, the usual mobilization on social networks was activated and the next morning, one of the walls of the Palmesan outpatient clinic appeared with a graffiti that read “Enough of linguistic aggressions” under the signature of Come in, a far-left pro-independence youth organization that has starred in various incidents against tourists or rental cars.
The Balearic Cultural Work (OCB), counterpart of Òmnium Cultural de Catalunya, charged against the Balearic Executive and threatened mobilizations if they did not act immediately with what they call “linguistic attacks”. And the Office for the Defense of Linguistic Rights – created to alleviate “the pain of not speaking Catalan” as assured by the Minister of Education, Martí March, in his presentation in 2020 – leaked to the press the number of complaints collected, 96 in total, and those that affected health, 58, that is, approximately 40%.
At first, the Government’s reaction was to minimize the impact of the phenomenon, along the lines of the argument that continues with other burning issues. For the Ministry of Health –Directed by the PSOE- 58 complaints are not so relevant because they are only the 0,00058 % of the interrelationships between professional and patient, since in the Balearic Islands there are more than 10 million medical acts a year. The reaction of the department headed by Patricia Gómez further inflamed the spirits among the Catalanism of the Islands and caused a crisis within the Executive.
Files
The regional secretary of University and Language Policy and former deputy of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Agustina Vilaret, described as “very serious” the attitude of Health. “Any discrimination or aggression, of any kind, is unacceptable. Intolerance and violence cannot be trivialized ”. Pushed by their rank and file, the nationalists of Month, who direct the language policy of the Executive among other portfolios, forced an extraordinary meeting of the government pact to deal exclusively with the use of Catalan in health. And so on Monday afternoon, members of PSOE, Podemos and Més agreed that, from now on, the Government will file, first for information and then to sanction if necessary, any health worker who receives a complaint in the Linguistic Rights Defense Office.
In addition, as of October 1, all posters in hospitals and health centers will be at least in Catalan and the various Government departments will ensure through express managers that all claims regarding linguistic aspects are processed. Meanwhile, the denounced doctor insisted that she understands Catalan and that she only informed the patient that she would express herself in Spanish. But by then the files for linguistic reasons were already a reality.
In this way, an arson is put out, according to the Simebal medical union, “For political reasons.” In the middle of the legislature, the parties that make up the government pact must begin to differentiate themselves from their ‘colleagues’ and in the case of Month there was an even greater need. The poor results in the last elections lowered its importance in the second legislature of the Govern of Armengol and its permissiveness with the construction of the new highway Llucmajor Campos has received harsh criticism from one of his great niche voters, environmentalism. Because Month He could not miss the opportunity to wave another of his great flags, the uncompromising defense of the Catalan language.
After years of establishing de facto language immersion in education -In the Balearic Islands it is impossible to study in Spanish in a public center- the next challenge of the self-proclaimed Progress Pact it was to establish the Catalan language in healthcare. To do this, they promoted Decree 8/2018 of March 23, which regulated the linguistic training of the statutory staff of the Health Service. Through this new legislation, the Government forced, for example, doctors, nurses and specialist ray technicians to have a level B1 of Catalan if they wanted to get a place. Aware of the problems you have Baleares To cover its health staff, the Department of Health granted a two-year moratorium from obtaining the position to obtain the title. After that period, the doctor should prove his level of Catalan or else he would be penalized and he would not be able to opt for transfers or to charge for the professional degree.
Difficult to fill vacancies
For the most nationalist sector of the Government, these measures have never been enough and that is why the Office for the Defense of Linguistic Rights was opened and pressure has been put in recent days to promote the use of Catalan in the health field. The Balearic PSOE, led for years by Francina Armengol -who in her university stage in Barcelona was active in a pro-independence youth organization-, is receptive to all these measures but must also deal with the serious difficulties of the Health Service to cover the staff vacancies now and in the future. That is why he encourages the demand for Catalan but, at the same time, tries to avoid that requirement. In fact, as sources from the Ministry of Health acknowledge to EL ESPAÑOL, the native language is only claimed in the oppositions and a blind eye is turned in hiring and stock exchanges, “where it does not apply.”
And yet there is a chronic shortage of staff. According to the Simebal medical union, only in Primary care 350 doctors are missing; and since the pandemic began, in the words of the union Bet, “More than 300 nurses have fled the Balearic Islands”. Thats why he IB Salut must pull where it can. First, it uses workers from the Peninsula, but they always fall short and now much more because, on the occasion of the Coronavirus, many have found work close to their place of origin. So the Government has no other than hire foreign specialists, especially South Americans from countries like Cuba, Colombia or Venezuela. Even in some cases, as Simebal denounces, “professionals are being hired with non-approved titles to alleviate the shortage of doctors ”. According to the doctors, there are about 200 in the Primary Care of the Balearic Islands. IbSalut recognizes this, says that it has always been done and that justice supports the use of this type of specialists when there is no other option. Likewise, they clarify that they are professionals with minor contracts, that is, they tend to be in charge of substitutions, especially in Emergency and Primary Care services.
The situation is complicated in Mallorca, but on the other islands it is dramatic. The lack of air connections in low season or the high cost of living and specifically of housing – especially in Ibiza– They cause a constant headache to the Health Service. As a medium and long-term measure, the Government has created the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the Balearic Islands, but there are still several courses missing for the first promotion to come out. Dozens of doctors have also been allowed to work until the age of 70 to face another serious problem, the high age of many professionals: it is estimated that 15% of doctors in the Balearic Islands will retire in the next five years.
The saturation of primary care has been a fact for years –There is one doctor for every 2,000 health cards- and all health workers demand more incentives to retain employees. One of the salary reforms that are most strongly demanded is the insularity bonus, a constant battle horse among all officials in the Balearic Islands. The comparison with other territories is overwhelming: for example, a doctor from Palma can charge four times less for this concept than one who works in Las Palmas. And that despite the fact that the cost of living is much higher in the Balearic capital than in the city of Gran Canaria.
“Right now, even with all private healthcare, We would not have the capacity to exit the current waiting lists ”. The unions do not say so. These are the words of the Minister of Health, Patricia Gómez, last Thursday. The number of patients waiting for a first consultation with the specialist grew 40% compared to last year with June data. Furthermore, there are notable differences between islands. For example, in Ibiza the surgical waiting list is 38 times higher than in Menorca.
Against this background, the threat of records to health workers reported for linguistic issues is presented as a new obstacle to expanding and consolidating the Health Service staff. “In the middle of the fifth wave and with the lack of professionals, are they seriously coming to us now with Catalan?” Claudio Triay is a hospital doctor Mateu Orfila from Menorca and it has been warning for some time that the Balearic Islands is a destination that is not very attractive or not at all attractive for health personnel. The high rental price of housing in the Islands, the insularity, the precarious contracts that are offered -sometimes for days- and the lack of incentives do not compensate for crossing the pond. The problem of recruiting professionals in the Balearic public health is a problem that has been going on for years. But Catalan has been the highlight:
“It makes it difficult to recruit and has caused the exodus of professionals that they were already working here ”, acknowledges Triay, who argues that knowledge of the Catalan language should be a merit and not a requirement, as also supported by the Official College of Physicians of the Balearic Islands, Simebal or Satse, among others. At the moment, the Government does not take your opinion into account and the first file is already underway. The storm does not abate in the Balearic health.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com