The Valencia Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, has presented a plan to improve access to healthcare in the region.
Barceló promised that between this year and next, health centres will receive 326 million euro for infrastructure, technology and for increases in staff. This increase in personnel will be structural, will materialise in the month of April and will mean that 1,600 new professionals from different categories, including doctors, nurses, assistants and caretakers, will join the health centres, which means increasing the workforce by 13 %.
According to Barceló, this increase in staff will allow the ratios of patients per doctor to be improved to those recommended by scientific societies, 1,500 adults per family doctor and 900 per paediatrician. The funding provided for this increase in staff is 130.7 million euro.
There will also be 188 million for infrastructure, of which more than 76 million will go to the construction of new health centres. As the Minister has promised, in four years Primary Care will take 25% of the budget of her department, ten points more than today.
The plan contemplates five essential areas, which are outlined in 23 objectives and one hundred actions. Among them, to standardise the schedules of out-of-hospital emergency services throughout the Valencian Community.
In addition, the portfolio of services will be expanded and unified to provide all health centres with the necessary equipment to perform ultrasound, retinography, injections and minor surgery. Preferential referrals will also be launched in trauma and cardiovascular.
