Soon your child will be three years old. What is your experience with the pediatric service?

At the time Harkaitz was born, there were two pediatricians at our health center in the Casco Viejo, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, although both were on reduced working hours. It touched us the afternoon, I work in the morning, therefore, well, and with the pediatrician, with Mary, very well. But months later Maria moved elsewhere, Osakidetza decided not to replace her and we ran out of a pediatrician. So I made my first complaint by asking Harkaitz to assign a pediatrician: we got a new pediatrician, but at the Olaguibel Health Center, not our neighbor. This pediatrician performed one day in the health center and another in the emergency room, but at least we were guaranteed care. Of course, at all times the pediatrician from Castellanoparlante.

But there were new problems, right?

A few months later, when I asked for an appointment, I discovered that that pediatrician also left. I made a second complaint when my son was without a pediatrician and I gave him one. I was told that Harkaitz had a pediatrician and that if she wanted to change it, she had to request it expressly. The pediatrician wasn't talking about it anymore, he wasn't believing. With this answer, I went to my health center and was told that the pediatrician had an open space and that if I wanted to, they could take it there. We changed back to the Old Town, that's in the morning, because there's no more. Again, erdaldun doctor.

This only pediatrician from the Casco Viejo has been on leave for four months and has not been replaced.

Not only that. I have been told that he may retire before discharge because he is an older man, and in that case Osakidetza will surely not replace him. If you now request an appointment, you will be directed to Olagibel or the Aranbizkarra district.

In short, since birth, Harkaitz has had four pediatricians in three health centers. However bad he has not suffered from major diseases because no pediatrician has treated it continuously.

He has introduced three complaints, the fourth tells me that he is about to enter.

I am in favour of complaining, but the answers are shameful. They are always bureaucratic responses.

Osakidetza says the problem is that there is no pediatrician. There are workers who say there are, but they are working in hospitals.

I have also heard that, that pediatricians prefer to be in hospitals than in primary care, because they charge more and because they are more suitable places to see and learn more. I fear that they have much better conditions in hospitals, not only in terms of salaries, but also in terms of work. Among other things, it is terrible how primary care doctors are increasing the quota.

The problems of pediatrics are not new, in recent years there have been protests in the neighborhood.

When we went from two pediatricians at once, the neighbors and neighbors mobilized and previously there was also a protest from the association of parents of the neighborhood school. Last year a hearing was also held at Gasteiz level.

Does your child have Ramón Bajo school, in the educational community, responsible for the lack of a pediatrician?

I know that last week was a point at the AMPA meeting and that they are thinking of some initiative to present complaints on a massive scale. But it's a subject that comes out in one way or another, inevitably.

Those responsible for Osakidetza repeat the motto "There are no pediatricians" as an uncontrollable weather phenomenon.

It's general, like in Osakidetza, for example in education. At the time when I worked in the management of educational personnel, it was very clear, for example, that language or philosophy teachers had been needed for a long time. For all these years, have you not made any planning or planning to drive these races? With medicine, the same thing.

On the other hand, if you know there are problems covering primary care positions, make them more attractive, right? There may be different ways: money, working hours, working conditions... But instead, what is being done? Lowering requirement barrier. In education, any philologist with C2 can give Euskera, in medicine, foreigners can start working directly without an approval process. All right. But why was it not possible so far? Because it was valued that it was not appropriate for the quality of the service. These may be exceptional solutions for a given moment, but it requires a longer and wider look. What's the plan, bringing doctors from abroad? Or don't those in here leave? Or both at once?

Do you think the problem is general?

We talk about pediatrics, but first care is complete and full service, the problem is integral. This week in the Crew have been several sick people and said that to unsubscribe they have talked directly with the administrative, without a doctor. The child is sick, the pediatrician is listening and "has the flu, if it gets more serious go to the emergency room", and you're done. Another person in the Crew is operated on for varicose veins. In December they called him from Osakidetza, citing to perform the intervention in a private center: "No, but I want to do it in public"; "But you know we're turning from the public to the private..." If you do not accept, you should wait at least another year. Or my father knows he'll have to have knee surgery. At least one year from Osakidetza you will go to know if you will be operated. He's 80 years old. They force you to go to the private in the face of a need. They're turning us private.