The Assembly Movement Union of Health Workers (MATS) denounces that the already precarious public residences of seniors in the Community of Madrid are living “a critical situation” this summer. To the hundreds of places of health and welfare personnel without covered by the different stabilization processes, vacancies are added by vacancies, so in “many centers” an “alarming and increasingly widespread practice is being used”: the hiring of auxiliary technicians without a healthcare degree and only with basic studies to do functions that require specialized training, that of techniques in auxiliary nursing care (TCAs).
“The neglect of the regional government not only compromises the quality of care, but also puts at risk the health and dignity of the elderly,”. The union does not have total hiring figures, since the regional government does not facilitate them, something that does not ask questions of this newspaper, but ensures that it is something that happens “generalized in the 25 residences” of the Madrid Social Attention Agency (AMAS).
“It is not new, they began to do it last summer, but this year it has intensified,” says Elvira García and Nandi Gutiérrez, both TCAES and Mats union delegates in the great residence of Carabanchel, 470 squares, where last year “there were 10 hiring of auxiliary technicians and this year, quite more.” Only in this geriatric, where 212 TCAES and 34 Nursing University Diplomas (DUES) work in three shifts, estimate that there are about 100 sanitary vacancies to cover.
Thus, they find dramatic situations in which, at night, there is only one TCAE per module and a DUE for three ―The bigger module is 76 people and the rest, about 50. The lack of qualified personnel makes the time they can dedicate to each user to lift them, clean them, dress them and give them breakfast is reduced from 20 or 25 minutes to just 10. “The work in the end comes out, the question is how”, the professionals raise, which fear that, due to the rush and the workload, they will be overlooked situations that would require the intervention of a doctor.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Affairs of the Government of Madrid says, in statements to this newspaper, that “all professionals who work in public residences are qualified and prepared to work on their positions” and clarifies that “national regulations do not require that in residences work.”
“And what do they mean by this? Except the toilet and lift them from the beds, most of the tasks that are performed with adults, such as priests and medication, do require this qualification and if we do not do it, who does it?” Gutierrez asks, who explains that giving the medication, for example, is not as simple as “distribute pastelites” because the users of the residences are mostly dependent. They do not collaborate for their cognitive impairment or that cannot swallow well because of their physical deterioration. “You have to crush the pills and camouflage them between food, so manage the medication is equivalent to feeding them,” he clarifies.
For its part, Garcia says that the Madrid Convention does require that they are TCAES, professionals who, at the time, charge more than auxiliary technicians. “But they skip it and ask us what we prefer, an assistant or that there is no one,” he laments.
The regional spokesman points out, in what qualifies as “improvement of the service”, which you love it “has in template at 2,400 TCAES” of a total of 9,500 workers, among which are administrative, kitchen, maintenance and gardener personnel.
In any case, the Regional Executive admits that “in summer, before the substitutions of the TCAES and the shortage of this category, the hiring of a reinforcement with auxiliary technicians, a different and authorized category to work in public residences and provided for in the collective agreement is always authorized.” According to the spokesman, this staff “in no case performs health work”, as reminded of posters hanging in the residences.
“In the end, I have to do my job, that of my partner who is on vacation and that of a person who cannot do it. It is a painful situation for which we are going through because it is no longer only our work overload, but the minor is the qualification, worse is the assistance,” summarizes García, who says that “there is, but they do not want to work in these deplorable conditions.” According to the union representatives, cases of “resignations to fixed squares” are being given when the opponent arrives and meets this panorama. “If you don’t want the fixed position, how they will love it for three months and with half of the vacation staff,” he explains.
Mats denounced this practice last summer before Labor Inspection, but “their hands were washed” since they can hire them “with the limitations of the health part.” Although its presence is legal, “it is unfeasible, it is not sustained, it gives rise to errors in attention, to unacceptable delays in basic care and a physical and emotional overload for those who are formed,” concludes the union delegates, for which this reduction in templates to the marrow is the result of “a political decision conscious not to invest in decent care.”
