The ‘minister’ of Health, Josep Maria Argimon, has urged this Tuesday to “transform” the health system. “It is time to look at the medium and long term, not the short term,” he claimed at the conference ‘Transformació del sistema de salut: present i futur’, at the Center d’Arts Digitals de Barcelona (Ideal), after which He has spoken with the journalist Lídia Heredia.
Argimon has divided this transformation into five axes. The first of these is “moving towards a more integrated care model”, which involves “strengthening primary care”, providing it with new professional profiles, and greater “networking”. To questions from Heredia, Argimon has recognized that primary care is underfunded in Catalonia: it receives only 12% of the Health budget, when according to the WHO it should receive 25%. “We will not reach this percentage in a year,” he assumed.
The second axis of this transformation, according to the ‘minister’, has to do with “co-governance”. “There must be a greater participation of the territorial estates in the purchase and evaluation of services. There is also a need for territorial co- governance of the institutions, which facilitates agreements and alliances,” said Argimon.
The third axis is to strengthen public health, which “has remained on the periphery of the system and now we have seen that it is essential and central,” said the ‘minister’. “It is necessary to strengthen public health, budgetary and organizationally. That means, from the outset, that we must definitely deploy the Public Health Agency of Catalonia (Aspcat),” he claimed. Thus, according to him, Aspcat “must cease to be an entity of the ‘conselleria’ to truly become an agency.”
Health Professionals
A fourth axis has to do with improving the stability of the health professionals’ workforce and preventing them from going abroad. The ‘minister’ has not been wet about the salary improvements of these professionals, which they have been demanding for years, and has focused more on the inequality suffered by the different territories of Catalonia, since some workplaces in “isolated points “They are not” attractive “to professionals, he said.
Finally, the last axis is dedicated to citizens and, in this sense, Argimon has called to “take into account their perspective in decisions and health policies.” The same has also called to promote “research and innovation”, especially at a time when 50% of the medical equipment in Catalonia is “obsolete”.
” European funds will be a key element to advance in the transformation of the health system based on innovation, through the development of systemic, transversal projects that favor the increase of the resilience of the health system”, said the Minister ‘, who has also stressed that the “high priority” of his legislature is, however, mental health. He has recognized the historical lack of resources in the territory that the covid-19 pandemic has aggravated. Even so, he celebrated that this time Europe’s response to this crisis is not austerity. “European funds will provide us with a very important leap,” he applauded.
In addition, Argimon has taken for granted that there will not be a new wave of coronavirus for now, despite the fact that epidemiological indicators have been growing in Catalonia for days. “The whole of Europe is going up,” he said. The hopeful thing: “We have a good vaccination rate.”
