Health leaves in the hands of Escrivá to expedite the discharges due to coronavirus

The Interterritorial Health Council did not address the expediting of medical discharges caused by the flood of infections in recent days. Autonomous communities like Madrid were waiting for a response to a problem that is getting worse due to the saturation of health centers, but there was no concrete answer. “They told us that this is an issue to be discussed with Escrivá,” sources from the Madrid Health Ministry told this newspaper.

Faced with this refusal, the head of the Madrid health portfolio sent a letter to the Minister of Social Security urging him to articulate a solution. Last Tuesday, the minister said that it could be done without any problem and that no regulatory change was necessary that pertains to the Government and yes to the management of each autonomous community. “The current regulations in force, Royal Decree 625/2014, of July 18, establishes that, both the discharge and the discharge part, must be issued after the recognition of the patient by the doctor, which requires at least two medical acts, with one exception: very short temporary disability processes, which are those with a duration of between 1 and 4 days, “Ruiz Escudero replied by letter.

In addition, the counselor requests a normative modification also so that the mutual collaborators of Social Security can take charge of the issuance of a discharge and discharge of those positive but asymptomatic patients who require a seven-day quarantine.

Primary care

All these requests are produced before the obviousness of a saturated healthcare in their primary care. In most cases, anyone who completes his discharge and requests an appointment to obtain discharge is received by the doctor with the promptness that occurred before the omicron explosion. The saturation is such that applications to make an appointment like the one offered by the Community of Madrid can take about seven days to offer an appointment.

The Madrid Business Confederation-CEOE has already shown its concern about “the enormous increase” in the processes of sick leave due to Covid that are taking place in recent weeks. As the Madrid Ministry did this Wednesday, it requested the speeding up of the discharge procedure for those workers without symptoms of the disease. In a statement, the Madrid employers warned, based on data from the Association of Mutual Accidents at Work (AMAT), that casualties have increased more than a “thousand percent” (multiplying by 11) in the Community of Madrid in the last month, “with the cost that this implies for companies, which pay the benefit for short-term temporary disability and who have to suddenly reorganize almost daily,” he laments.

At the national level, AMAT has communicated that, as reported by the labor mutuals, 566,200 sick leave of employees affected by Covid-19 began in December, compared to 77,340 in November and 29,054 in October. That is, they have multiplied by eight (732% increase) if compared to the previous month and by 21 (1,950%) if compared to October. The long half million casualties in December accounted for 3.5% of the wage earners affiliated with Social Security in that month (16.49 million).

According to AMAT data, last December was the second with the most new deaths from Covid diagnosed of the entire pandemic, only behind January 2021, when 615,311 were registered, due to the Christmas holidays.

CEIM understands that access to the self-diagnostic tests has made it easier to identify positive cases and, therefore, enable the cause to request sick leave, either for those workers who have tested positive and are therefore infected, but also the loss of sickness. who have been in contact.