The Ministry of Health will impose a mandatory mask requirement on residents of hospitals and medical centers | Society

The Ministry of Health will introduce the mandatory use of masks in hospitals and health centers starting Wednesday, due to the escalation of influenza infections, as Efe announced this Monday afternoon and the department headed by Mónica García confirmed to EL PAÍS. A few hours earlier in the morning, the majority of the autonomous communities opposed the measure at the emergency Interterritorial Council of the national health system and supported the recommendation. So far, only six have decided to use it.

His health did not wait for the 48 hours he had…

The Ministry of Health will introduce the mandatory use of masks in hospitals and health centers starting Wednesday, due to the escalation of influenza infections, as Efe announced this Monday afternoon and the department headed by Mónica García confirmed to EL PAÍS. A few hours earlier in the morning, the majority of the autonomous communities opposed the measure at the emergency Interterritorial Council of the national health system and supported the recommendation. So far, only six have decided to use it.

The Ministry of Health did not wait for the 48 hours it gave the autonomies to submit charges regarding the proposal that the department itself made this morning. The ministry explained that it will adopt a declaration on coordinated actions to equalize protection against respiratory viruses for all citizens and legal protection for communities that have already implemented it.

Communities themselves took responsibility for introducing mandatory masks in health centers, with some implementing them and others not. The six countries that have already implemented it or have just implemented it are the Valencian Community (run by the PP and Vox); Catalonia (ERC); Murcia (PP); Aragon (PP), which initially introduced them for health workers and then extended them to patients in waiting rooms; The Canary Islands (CC), which announced this this Monday, and Asturias (PSOE), which also reported this measure after the advice and which, if applicable, will be in force for 15 days. The Ministry of Health has abandoned its original idea of ​​introducing them also in social health centers and pharmacies, where it now asks that they be merely a recommendation.

The legal format used by the ministry is unprecedented for imposing the use of masks. During the pandemic, it was the central government that regulated its mandatory nature in various areas, but through decrees and laws. The last law, which required masks to be kept in medical centers, social health centers and pharmacies, was repealed five months ago. In this case, the Ministry of Health ensures that it is protected by Article 65 of the National Health System Cohesion and Quality Act, which regulates the declaration of coordinated public health action and “binds all parties” included in it. Department sources explain that only hospitals and medical centers are currently being considered, and that this is the only way for regional authorities to enforce the rule through legal guarantees.

This morning the majority of communities made it clear that they are against this commitment. With different political overtones, at least Andalusia, Galicia, Madrid, La Rioja, Navarre, Cantabria, Castile and Leon and the Balearic Islands (administered by the PP), Euskadi (PNV) and Castilla-La Mancha (PSOE) have declared their refusal. public. Many of them asked the ministry to provide technical criteria for making a decision.

Madrid Councilor Fátima Matute (PP) assured that her position and that of the majority of the council is to support the responsible use of masks in the cases already mentioned. “And of course, that is what we are going to continue to apply with scientific rigor and based on the data that we have in each community to protect our population.” – he said after the meeting.

Castile-La Mancha’s Socialist Health Minister Jesus Fernandez Sanz echoed a similar point and said his ministry’s proposal was that masks should not be mandatory, but that the recommendation be maintained, “calling for the responsibility of the population.” He also asked for a meeting of the Alarm Report (composed of technical specialists) and the Public Health Commission (composed of heads of ministries and autonomies) “so that it is the technical specialists who propose measures.”

This is a reproach that Murcia’s Health Minister Juan José Pedreño also expressed to the minister, who regretted that health “came late” and called the proposal, which did not pass through the aforementioned technical bodies, an “incident”. “Given the high incidence of influenza and respiratory viruses, the regional government has already taken preventive and control measures, although the ministry has not held consultations and has not been interested in the development of autonomies,” he said.

Some communities that reject this obligation, such as La Rioja, propose to impose a mask mandate only in health centers if certain thresholds for respiratory virus incidence are reached, although they have not established what those rates should be.

However, Garcia’s proposal has received widespread support in the health sector: both scientific and medical societies and representatives of professional circles believe that masks should be stored in medical centers during epidemics like the current one. The CSIF, the most representative trade union in government, blames the Ministry of Health and regional officials for their failure to agree on measures to be taken and demands increased staffing and mandatory mask wearing. The General Council of Nursing also ruled in favor, holding that the latter could be a temporary preventive measure to minimize the peak incidence of respiratory infections expected in the coming days.

Automatic discharge to clean the primary winding

In addition to this debate, Minister Monica Garcia told the council that she is exploring allowing citizens with a minor illness to be able to take responsible self-claimed sick leave for the first three days of incapacity. This is a measure that medical societies have been demanding for years to ease the burden on medical centers, and which the ministry is now considering due to the growing winter epidemic of respiratory viruses, especially influenza.

The Ministry of Health is coordinating with the Ministry of Social Protection the form and timing of their implementation, sources in the department headed by Garcia said. The minister explained that in many other countries the system already works this way, and that in the same way that citizens declare their illness to a doctor (even if it was to obtain sick leave), they can do so responsibly. without the involvement of a healthcare professional, which can save time for more necessary care tasks.

Some communities, such as Aragon, have already rejected the measure, while medical societies, which have been asking for it for some time, have welcomed it. This is the case with the Spanish Society of General Practitioners and Family Physicians (SEMG), whose occupational health group spokesman Francisco Sáez told Efe that “what does not make sense is that a worker who has a flu or cold” should flee to a clinic to sign a sick note is nonsense and absurd,” but this also “overloads” already overcrowded clinics.

Paulino Cubero, representative of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), states in the same vein: “As is done in other countries, the latest of which was Portugal in 2023, sick leave of one to three days can be justified electronic means between the patient and his company so that many unnecessary visits can be avoided for self-limiting processes such as colds, gastrointestinal attacks, migraines, dysmenorrhea and other minor processes that do not require a medical diagnosis.

However, immediate action is needed to overcome the collapse of primary health care. The flu epidemic is rapidly gaining momentum: in the absence of more recent data, which will be published on Thursday, the number of infections increased by 75% in the last week of the year. Experts predicted that it would continue to increase, given that after these dates there were numerous family and holiday celebrations that contributed to the spread of the virus.

While it is not yet possible to determine when the peak will occur, experts predict that cases will begin to decline around the second half of the month. Moreover, the effects of influenza do not only affect health centers: emergencies are observed in many areas of Spain, and some hospital facilities, for example in the Valencian Community, one of the regions with the highest incidence rates, are already suffering from strain.

Finally, the Interterritorial Council on Monday considered the implementation of the winter plan for future seasons of viral epidemics. This will be a joint and coordinated effort from the moment the first infections begin to try to avoid a collapse like those seen this year.