The Madrid Health Service ended the year with 20,842 temporary or temporary professionals who had been in this situation for more than three years, according to a parliamentary response accessed by EL PAÍS.
The figure not only highlights the precariousness with which health workers in the region have been fighting the coronavirus, but also highlights a potential problem for the autonomous administration.
The central government is committed to promoting a legal change that sanctions, precisely, that this precarious situation, in which no compensation is recognized in case of dismissal or preference is given if the place goes out to competition, lasts more than three years.
"The abuse of temporality and precariousness has been and is a constant in Madrid's health care and the European Court of Justice has already warned us", recalls Mónica García, deputy of Más Madrid, about the March 2020 sentence in which it is criticized the abuse of the figure of the interim by the Spanish Administration and opens the door to "dissuasive" compensation.
"It is one more form of deterioration of the system," he underlines about the management of the PP governments, which have held power in the region since 1995. "They have been filling necessary structural positions with interim and eventual positions for years who are made to sign dozens of contracts ”, denounces the deputy, who obtained the data from the Executive through a question in the Assembly.
"What the figures show is that one in four health workers is in fraud of the law by the health administration itself."
In the Community, 53.3% of professionals are subject to this instability - of the 83,517 Sermas workers, 13,964 are temporary and 30,605 temporary, with figures closed on January 31, regardless of how long they have been in that situation.
It is not uncommon to find someone who has been working in the same position for 10, 15 years without a fixed contract.
"There are people who retire without having been fixed, 30 years like that," says Julián Ezquerra, from the Association of Physicians and Higher Graduates.
In the Emergency Department, for example, "90%" of its professionals "are not permanent," a figure.
Mariano Martín-Maestro, from the Workers' Commissions, details that "more than 1,200 of the temporary workers have been in their position for more than two years": "This is not an eventuality, it is a structural position."
The challenge of setting up a vital and professional project in these circumstances has been aggravated by the pandemic: many have faced a virus that can be fatal - in Madrid, according to the latest newsletter of the Ministry of Health, they have died 22,568 people, 3.75% of those infected until this Wednesday, 601,144—, knowing that they can be fired at any time.
“Without compensation”, specifies Jesús García, from the Satse nursing union, “which is one of the issues that distinguishes temporary workers from permanent ones.
Same job, different working conditions ”.
There are other differences: while the permanent ones charge the professional career (the experience that they accumulate through courses, research, etc.), the interns have it recognized but they are not paid - "even though it was agreed with the regional Executive" , clarifies Ezquerra—, and to the eventuals neither one thing nor the other.
Nor can they participate in the transfer contests either within the centers or between the centers in the region.
Víctor Jiménez, president of the Madrid Nursing Association, affirms that this "shows that the opposition positions that are needed are not being summoned."
The temporary employment rate is 7.4% in the Central Administration, 12.28% in the local ones;
and 36.66% in the autonomous regions, as revealed in a parliamentary appearance last November by the Secretary of State for Territorial Policy and Public Function, Francisco Hernández Spínola.
The representative of the Executive has already advanced in that intervention that the central government was working on a new regulation to solve this problem.
A message reaffirmed by Miquel Iceta, the new Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Function, after his appointment.
"We have the great problem of interns, of temporary employment in public employees," he said in an interview in EL PAÍS.
“Now the European Union also tells us that we have a very high temporality.
Above all, in health and education.
That has to be solved in one, two, three years.
No more".
The Executive chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso is below the Spanish average in public health spending, it is the Community with the lowest percentage of invested GDP, 3.6%;
it is the second behind Andalusia (1,212 euros) that spends the least per inhabitant, 1,274 euros;
and the third autonomy that invests the least in the remuneration of its professionals.
Jiménez points out that this "maintained precariousness interests" the Community: "If you don't have landlines, you can move them as you want and wherever you want, such as Ifema or Zendal."
Martín-Maestro recalls the agreement to improve public employment that was signed with the then minister Cristóbal Montoro in 2017: "So that in three years the temporality would decrease to 8%."
Of the four public job offers that have been made at the national level, “2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, only the 2017 call has been carried out in Madrid. Six professional categories were examined in 2019 and, to date, , nor have the notes been published ”, adds Martín-Maestro.
The Community says it has this public job offer "underway, with almost 20,000 jobs, in three phases", although they do not specify if these stages will be completed in 2021.
The replacement rate that makes it impossible for the workforce to grow
In all the autonomies, apart from their own problems in their human resources, there is another common to all: the replacement rate, in which limit is the number of places that can be summoned.
Julián Ordóñez, from UGT, explains that there “the solution has to come from the state level, because right now that threshold is at 100%”.
That is, a maximum of the vacancies that remain, such as retirement, promotion or death, can be offered.
"But the workforce is not allowed to grow, which is what is needed in Madrid, to stabilize thousands of positions and increase human resources," says Ordóñez.
Although, he clarifies, "it is no excuse": "Because Madrid does not have stabilized or those who are already part of the system nor does it cover what it can cover."
From the Csif union they point out that the interim period "exceeds unacceptable limits" that has triggered the pandemic: "For the first time it exceeds one million [at the national level] and now stands at 30%, almost ten points above the private sector.
One in four temporary contracts that are made in Spain are in public administrations ”.
In addition, they conclude, this has generated "unprecedented" situations: "Like the destruction of jobs in Health, 11,325 fewer jobs throughout January and February, coinciding with the third wave of the covid and the vaccination campaign."
Information about the coronavirus
- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic
- Restrictions search engine: What can I do in my municipality?
- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in the world
- Download the tracking application for Spain
- Guide to action against the disease
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/LXJQLIHEEJDHBNVN45ZLQLAMJY.jpg)
