BackThe Ombudsman and the autonomous-regional ombudsmen presented the joint study “Hospital Accident and Emergency services in the National Health System: patients’ rights and guarantees” (“Las urgencias hospitalarias en el Sistema Nacional de Salud: derechos y garantías de los pacientes”) which examines the realities of A&E services and the impact on people’s fundamental rights of how they work.
The study was approved at a meeting between the Ombudsman, Soledad Becerril, and the Ombudsman of Andalusia, Jesús Maeztu; the Ombudsman of Aragón, Fernando García; the Ombudsman of the Canary Islands, Jerónimo Saavedra; the Ombudsman of Castile and León, Javier Amoedo; the Assistant Ombudsman of Catalonia, Jordi Sànchez; the Ombudsman of the Regional Community of Valencia, José Cholbi; the Ombudsman of Galicia, José Julio Fernández; the Ombudsman of Navarre, Francisco Javier Enériz; and the Ombudsman of the Basque Country, Íñigo Lamarca.
As the Ombudsman explained, the report analyses the problems that are common to A&E services as a whole, without going into detail about the specific situation of any of them, because “the main issues, which largely coincide, are the deciding factors for the care that the patients receive”.
The study contains 40 findings. It takes a positive view of enlargment or renovation measures undertaken in the physical spaces devoted to dealing with accidents and emergencies in hospitals, but considers it necessary for changes to be made in oranising and managing the services, in order to solve problems of pressure on the system and saturation.
The report indicates that the repeated situations of saturation of A&E services threaten to undermine patients’ dignity, and proposes that heads of A&E services be taken into account when it comes to taking decisions on the availability of resources, hospital beds and staff.
The ombudsmen also advocate guaranteeing that there are enough professionals in the A&E services in all time bands and every day of the week.
Added to that, they call for a medical specialty in A&E to be created and point out that the lack of sufficient qualified staff in many hospitals leads to resident intern doctors shouldering an excessive degree of responsibility.
Vulnerable groups of people
The study points out that good coordination between A&E services and out-patient hospital services is essential for patients to make appropriate use of A&E and for the chronically ill, elderly and people in a situation of social exclusion to receive proper care.
The ombudsmen point out that, in many places, irregular immigrants are not guaranteed continuity of medical care. In that respect, they give a reminder that these patients should receive medical care, over and above registering with A&E services, until the health problem that gave rise to the emergency as a result of a serious illness or accident has been addressed.
Patients, health professionals and administrative managers from all 17 autonomous-regional health services and from the National Institute for Health Management (INGESA, its acronym in Spanish) for Ceuta and Melilla took part in and contributed to the study. The all discussed the same document containing 124 issues based on complaints received and visits made by the ombudsmen.
Source: Defensor del Pueblo, SPAIN
