“The value of cooperation is fundamental and the pandemic has put us on the right path”

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What has Spain learned during the Covid-19 pandemic? That is the question that the representatives of the health sector and the pharmaceutical industry have tried to solve during the first table of the ‘II Symposium of the Health Observatory: The Lessons of Covid-19’ organized by EL ESPAÑOL and Invertia and that started this Monday.

During the round table, ‘The Spanish health sector after the pandemic: situation, challenges, proposals for improvements and lessons learned’, doctors, pharmacists and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and health technology have valued the “coordinated” work that they have done between private and public companies to face the Covid-19.

“Together, together, together”, insisted the presidents of the Councils of Physicians and Pharmacists of Spain, Tomás Cobo and Jesús Aguilar, when they remembered the first months of the fight against Covid. Words reminiscent of the speech of the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, during the inauguration of the event and that have been reinforced by the ‘ministerial’ voice present in the debate forum, the Director of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, Pilar Aparicio.

4. The Spanish health sector after the pandemic: situation, challenges, proposals for improvements

“We have shown a great capacity for cooperation and coordination. A teamwork that has been reflected in the decisions and weekly meetings of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS)“, has introduced.

From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, Humberto Arnés, CEO of Farmaindustria, has valued the power of public-private cooperation with a clear example: the implementation of a vaccine against Covid that “we have been able to carry out in just nine months.” “The value of cooperation is fundamental and the pandemic has put us on the right path,” he remarked.

But what body can continue to act as a link between the health sectors, the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities? The Spanish Public Health Agency. An element that, in the opinion of Juan Abarca, president of the IDIS FoundationIt has to go beyond Public Health and combine “Preventive Medicine and quality control of care”. An organism (its creation is approved in the general budgets of the State) that must be the “unique” axis of coordination of all the Autonomous Communities.

But, for all this coordination between sectors, a “digital transformation of the health system” is needed. Something that Abarca and Margarita Alfonsel, general secretary of Fenin.

In his speech, Alfonsel has claimed the importance of not seeing the money that goes to health as an expense but as an “investment”. “We must invest in our technology park.” Alfonsel has demanded a “sufficient and stable financing” for the health and that, the promise of the Government that the sector will suppose 7% of the GDP in 2024 is reached before.

“We have to promote public-private collaboration models and contribute to the system all the technical and human resources necessary for the care to be adequate. Without forgetting the continuous training for health professionals “, he has listed.

Continuous training that, precisely, would affect doctors who have been represented by Tomás Cobo, president of the Collegiate Medical Organization. The anesthetist has denounced that “50% of health professionals have a precarious contract” something that must be solved “as quickly as possible”.

In addition, Cobo has stressed that for a doctor to be multidisciplinary, he should not have a lot of specialized training, but be trained in transversal skills, “something that happened during the pandemic and that has been of great help.”

As an example, the president of the doctors recalled how his fellow internists during the first pandemic waves had to go to the emergency room for triages. Something that, without that continuous and transversal training, “would not be possible”.

The Ministry of Health, represented by the Director of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, Pilar Aparicio, has supported each of the opinions adding the commitment, on the part of Carolina Darias’ team, to improve “a lot” the human resources of the national health system.

Jesús Aguilar, president of the General Council of Official Associations of Pharmacists, has insisted that the public health system is “very important” but, in turn, has “many problems” such as, for example, the great difference that the pharmaceutical sector has experienced when the Autonomous Communities implemented measures dictated by the Council Interterritorial.

“We have to make a reflection among all the sectors, because if we have learned something, it is that, when we have the collaboration of all, the results are a success,” Aguilar was proud.

Recovery funds

One of the great hopes for him sanitary system (both in its public and private aspects) is the injection of money that the European recovery funds will entail. Money that for the sector is a “country opportunity” and for which they have asked for a unique strategy.

Humberto Arnés and Pilar Aparicio have agreed on the need to have a single plan that includes all sectors and that, according to the Director of Public Health, lays its foundations on the premises that were approved in the Congress of Deputies over a year ago.

From the perspective of PharmaindustryThese recovery funds should be invested in biometric research and in “generating incentives for private activity to promote employment and investment.” Pulling for his land, Cobo has preferred to talk about investing all that money in doctors’ salaries, since without his figure, “there is no health model, or National Health System.”

With the look set in the future, Juan Abarca he has refused to give false expectations to the population and has preferred to speak of “trying to live with the virus but not with the disease.” “You have to be prepared for the worst and you have to keep your guard up until there are neutralizing vaccines and efficient treatments,” he advised.

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