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Healthcare Forgets the 35-Hour Workweek in Primary Care Doctors' Schedule Change

Healthcare Forgets the 35-Hour Workweek in Primary Care Doctors' Schedule Change

The CESM regrets that the reduced hours will not materialize until a year after the agreement

Pau Sellés

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Lunes, 28 de octubre 2024, 17:30

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January 2025. This was the deadline set by the current Department of Health to implement the reduction of the weekly work schedule to 35 hours for healthcare personnel (currently at 37 hours), following the commitment made by the previous regional government. However, the implementation of this measure among healthcare professionals will be delayed at least until early 2026, thus subjecting it to the reduced hours planned for the public service as a whole, which is being negotiated at the General Negotiation Table of Public Administrations.

Despite this breach, the Department of Health has taken a first step to make the 35-hour workweek effective, which in the case of Primary Care, implies the exclusion of Saturdays from the regular work schedule, --days that will be limited to continuous care shifts--. The measure will presumably be applied at the beginning of next year, once the increase in demand caused by the respiratory infection season has ended.

Víctor Pedrera, president of the Medical Union of the Valencian Community (CESM-CV), cautiously welcomes the measure, as his union has been demanding that it should be linked to the 35-hour workweek. Pedrera recalls that the CESM-CV opposed the conditions proposed by the previous regional administration to implement the reduced hours, which suggested granting 11 more days off per year.

Until now, Primary Care doctors worked an average of 8 Saturdays a year to complete their annual hour count

"Anyone who understands how management in Healthcare works knows that this is absurd. The Administration tends to not cover (with reinforcements) those absences due to days off, which means that other doctors in the same service take on an excess of patients, thus overloading schedules and waiting lists," points out the union leader.

The new proposal ends Saturdays as part of the regular work schedule, and generally, Primary Care physicians work an average of eight Saturdays a year to complete the annual hour count (currently at 1,520 hours). This will not mean that patients will not be attended to on Saturdays, as continuous care professionals (those attending emergencies in health centers) will extend their hours that day to start the shift at 8 a.m., whereas until now they started at 3 p.m.

Hours to be recovered during the week

Those hours that consultation doctors stop working on Saturday mornings must be recovered from Monday to Friday, extending their workday in the afternoon. This is where the CESM-CV's discontent lies, whose leader insists that the exclusion of Saturdays should come without doctors "owing hours." Thus, with scheduled appointments between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. during the week, primary care physicians will have to see more patients on some days to meet the total hour count.

"Doctors are advocating for a workweek from Monday to Friday, while other professionals are asking to work from Monday to Thursday," explains Pedrera, highlighting the comparative grievance that the medical community suffers in some aspects of their work.

Apart from this criticism, and while waiting to achieve the 35-hour workweek, the CESM-CV values positively the exclusion of Saturday from the regular work schedule of primary care teams, both for professionals, "who will be able to enjoy greater family conciliation by having weekends off"; and for patients, who with the previous proposal of 11 days off per year for doctors "would be exposed to longer delays" due to the likely lack of coverage for absences by the Administration.

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