The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias , has announced that the Council of Ministers this Tuesday will approve the new Royal Decree on Specialties in Health Sciences. This was stated in statements to the media after participating in the conference ‘Challenges and perspectives of the National Health System’, organized by the Economic and Social Council of Spain (CES) within the framework of the Summer Courses of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid).
“Tomorrow we will give more details. It is a long-awaited Royal Decree, where we are going to establish transversal training in each and every one of the specialties in Health Sciences. We are going to establish a requirement objectively to access a new specialty and also We are going to continue advancing in the regulation of the calls for offers of Specialized Health Training (FSE)”, he commented to the media.
Likewise, it has detailed some of the main future projects of the Ministry, among them the SNS Care Strategy, new nursing prescription guides, the Health and Food Plans, and Health and Sports, the new Law of guarantees and rational use of the drug or the Strategic Plan for the Pharmaceutical Industry.
“Are we willing to expand the number of graduates?”
In his speech, Darias pointed out that the FSE is one of the “challenges” of the public health system, along with the lack of professionals. Therefore, he has raised the plausible need to increase the number of students in medical schools.
“Are we willing to expand the number of graduates? That is key. Before 2022 the number of people who left the faculties was much higher than the places offered. Year after year there was a bag that was left without accessing the FSE From 2022 until now, there are more places offered than graduates. That bag no longer exists. The next call will once again be the largest in the history of the SNS, with 11,000 places, but we have to address that challenge,” he justified.
On the other hand, the minister has also reflected in her presentation on the implications of COVID-19. “The pandemic has proven the resilience of the National Health System (SNS) and also its strengths. But also its areas for improvement and, of course, its needs”, she has wielded.
Darias also agreed with the opinion of the other speakers, including the president of the CES, Antón Costas, in that the pandemic “has shown that health is a fundamental aspect to ensure the progress of any country.” “Without health there is no life or development”, he has insisted in this regard.
In this context, it has recognized the opportunity to carry out “the necessary reforms” in the National Health System to “improve and expand each and every one of its capacities and recover rights that citizens had lost and that impact all groups, especially the most vulnerable.”
Progressive elimination of pharmaceutical copays
For example, he has praised the progressive elimination of pharmaceutical co-payments, which already benefits six million people, or the recovery of universality in 2022. Another point that he has highlighted is digitization, which he considers “the key word to achieve a SNS more resilient and robust”, or the investment in new high-tech equipment through the INVEAT Plan or the agreement with the Amancio Ortega Foundation for the implementation of proton therapy in public health.
Along the same lines, it has highlighted the Executive’s commitment to Mental Health, mainly through the launch of the 024 suicide prevention telephone line, which since its inception on May 10 has answered more than 25,500 calls, more than 1,000 have been referred to 112 and 433 ongoing suicides have been intervened. “It is a big step that is helping many people who are tempted to engage in this type of behavior,” he said.
Also in Mental Health, the minister pointed out that from next year’s call the Specialty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry will be created, which will form part of the Specialized Health Training offer.
For Darias, “these are the coordinates of the Resilience Plan”, which he describes as “a historic opportunity to advance in the SNS”. “It will allow us to launch a process of structural reform of great importance”, he defended.
The minister has claimed that the National Health System “not only guarantees cohesion, universality and equity”, but that “it is also the greatest redistributor of income, the one that equates and equalizes everyone”. “It is becoming more and more evident that the SNS is, above all, a necessary condition for full human development. Intervening in equity is not only a measure of social efficiency, but also an economic one”, she has riveted.
