The Madrid City Council offered the Community at the end of May a plan based on its health infrastructure to cooperate in the fight against covid-19 with more than a hundred trackers. This plan designed by the City Council for 16 municipal centers of Madrid Salud was never put into practice. The fact that this collaboration between the two administrations has not gone ahead has generated discomfort among health workers. Madrid Salud has centers in almost every district of the capital with staff very close to the population.
“I don't know why they haven't accepted. It has surprised us ”, acknowledges a Madrid Salud technician who prefers not to be identified and who knows that the contacts between the City Council and the Community to collaborate have become advanced. "It was a disappointment," he adds. That cooperation "would now be more necessary than ever," says an epidemiologist who works for regional health and who claims to be overwhelmed with work due to the outbreaks of recent weeks. Madrid is the worst hit region in Spain with 15,000 dead and 82,000 infected.
The coalition government of the Popular Party and Citizens even said that it was already underway. The person in charge of the Spokesperson, Security and Emergencies area of the City Council, Inmaculada Sanz, referred to him on May 20 in the commission of the branch: “In Latina that program has been running for two weeks and, as I say, we have made available from the Community of Madrid more than 100 professionals from our municipal health centers to also help in this phase to do the tracking, the follow-up of cases and everything that may be required of us ”. To the Community "we have offered the 16 municipal health centers," she added at another time during her appearance. In effect, the municipal community health center of the Latina district was chosen to launch this pilot project that finally did not start, according to sources from the capital's Executive confirmed this week.
“We had indeed been working on the coordination project for more than two weeks, perhaps a month or more,” explains one of the doctors from that center in Latina who participated in the plan meetings and who prefers not to reveal his identity. “It was not something far off. We were already in the concrete ”. They came to draft documents with the details: how they had to present themselves in the calls and the reason, access to the Community's data registration system or how to investigate with the contacts received from the Ministry of Health. "We already took it for granted." Perhaps that is why, he understands, Inmaculada Sanz did not think that she would not succeed.
Without wanting to enter into controversies with the Ministry of Health, from the Executive led by Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, of the PP, they insist that the powers are in the hands of the regional government. They add that it is the Executive chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, of the PP, who must explain why that experience did not work. The Ministry of Health, which has hired private trackers and asked for volunteers, has not responded to this newspaper's question as to why this plan was not put into practice. "The pilot project did not bear fruit, it remained on the table, in the same way as in other matters the collaboration did bear fruit," acknowledges a source from the City Council referring to vaccination programs or the transfer of 30 toilets to the Community to strengthen the regional primary care and nursing homes.
"It's a shame. A missed opportunity because these centers are the right place to do this work "
“We didn't understand much about what happened,” says the doctor at the Latina municipal health center. "It's a shame. A missed opportunity because these centers are the right place to do this job. We know the neighborhood associations, the parishes ... everything is closer and more familiar ”in a district like Latina with a population of 250,000 inhabitants.
The idea was for the teams of these municipal centers to carry out traces and follow-ups after receiving notification of coronavirus cases from the Community. It was not a network created on purpose , but was to tap the potential and years of experience of these health attached to life in the neighborhoods. The experience would take place first in Latina, in the center located on the Paseo de Extremadura, and later it would be extended to the other districts. In this case, they have from the Security and Emergencies area, it was not a matter of handing over personnel to the Community but of cooperating from these municipal facilities of Madrid Salud with the already organized teams of doctors, nurses or psychologists that they have.
“This was not invented by covid-19. What needs to be done is the lifelong epidemiological surveillance that public health has done. Meningitis, tuberculosis or measles in a nursery ”, details the Madrid Salud technician, annoyed that something that they know how to do well is going to be carried out by someone from a private company like Quirón, hired this week by the Community to carry out tracing. "The Chiron thing is nonsense," he adds. “You have to know what a contact is, assess it, know the incubation of the disease, assess the risk of contagion… It is better that this be done with people who are within the structure and our centers are very in contact with reality. This closeness is very good for monitoring ”.
Criticisms of the opposition
The municipal group of Más Madrid criticizes the preference for hiring trackers in the private market rather than taking advantage of public resources already available, such as those offered by the City Council. They regret that the City Council does not take advantage of its health potential and criticize that the Latina pilot project ended up in a drawer, according to a press release. “It stopped and did not start in other centers. It is a waste of resources. They are highly trained and professional people, with a vision of prevention and health promotion, ”Councilor Javier Barbero told this newspaper. He understands that it is a partisan decision that has behind “Almeida's loyalty to the Popular Party” rather than the benefit of “citizenship”.
The City Council has 17 municipal community health centers (CMSc). One is dedicated to young people and the other 16, those offered to Ayuso, are found in all the districts except Barajas, Chamartín, Moncloa-Aravaca and Moratalaz. Salamanca and Retiro share it. There remains the lament of the Madrid Salud technician, who does not rule out that, in the face of a possible even more negative evolution of the pandemic, the discarded collaboration between the City Council and the Community must be recovered in the future. “This has all been ugly. It undermines public health skills. We were very excited about that work, we looked very good ”.