Health defends undertaking ‘structural reforms’ in Osakidetza to prevent its ‘continued deterioration’

The Basque Government’s Ministry of Health defends the company structural reforms and avoid “systemic change” “continuing deterioration” of Osakidetza services.

This is stated in the document delivered to the officers who participated in the first meeting today to Health Pactwho wants to promote the Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales.

In this text, which runs to 264 pages and is intended as a starting point for contributions, the Executive carries out a diagnosis of the current situation of the Basque health care system and identifies a series of challenges it is facing, including the ageing of the population, low birth rates, the increase in chronic diseases, the appearance of emerging diseases, the ‘increasing demand’ of society and climate change.

“Without systemic change, a chronically overloaded system with limited response capacity will be forced to respond to recurring criseswhich will result in a continued deterioration of services, as has happened recently with the COVID-19 pandemic,” claims the department headed by adviser Alberto Martínez.

In this sense, Salud warns that the “introduction of new technologies and therapies”, chronic diseases and the “increase in social demand” have led to a “Underfunding of the health care system”It has therefore demanded that “financing models” be brought into line “with the needs of society” and that measures be taken to “ensure the long-term viability” of Osakidetza.

Health considered “crucial” among other issues to focus the activity of the Basque health system on disease preventionand advocates that “working conditions be created to make it easier for health workers to feel involved and play an active role” in the new care models.

Meeting of the Health Pact

Lehendakari Pradales, together with adviser Alberto Martínez, chaired today in Bilbao the first meeting with parties, unions, universities and organisations linked to health care to try to reach within six months a major pact aimed at improving public health in Euskadi.

The forecast is that the ‘Basque Health Pact’ will be fully operational in March 2025.

In particular, representatives of the official associations of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, dentists, social workers, physiotherapists, biologists and veterinarians participated in this first working group; the political parties PNV, PSE, EH Bildu, PP and Sumar; the trade unions LAB, CCOO, UGT, Medical Union and SATSE; the universities UPV/EHU, Deusto and Mondragon Unibertsitatea; as well as Confebask and patient associations.

ELA, the main trade union in Euskadi, did not attend the meeting because it did not believe that the new Basque government intended to implement fundamental changes in the health sector.

During this first meeting, the Lehendakari and the Minister of Health presented a working methodology for future meetings of this working group and delivered the above-mentioned diagnostic report.

After the meeting, the majority of participants made an assessment “positive”without failing to emphasize the shortcomings of that first diagnosis.

Earlier, Pradales assured that the Basque health pact “goes beyond” taking concrete measures and “is also about thinking about the transformation of the entire health system and looking beyond the next four years.” “We have to look ten to fifteen years ahead,” he said.