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Date Published: 10/11/2022

ARCHIVED - Murcia doctors warn that new ambulances staffed only with nurses will put patient safety at risk

ARCHIVED ARTICLE -

The new stripped-back ambulance service will cut funding for health services and endanger lives, says the Medical Union

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Murcia doctors warn that new ambulances staffed only with nurses will put patient safety at risk

The Medical Union (Cesm) is planning to go to court to try to overturn the creation of new 061 rapid intervention ambulances in the Murcia Region that are staffed only by emergency technicians and nurses, without any doctors.

The initiative was announced by the Regional Minister of Health, Juan José Pedreño, during a visit to Puerto Lumbreras, which will host one of the three units of this type that have been set up in the Region of Murcia. This unit will cover Area III (Guadalentín), while the other two will be located at the Rosell Hospital, to serve Cartagena and the Mar Menor, and in the Murcian district of Monteagudo, to cover the three metropolitan health areas.

María José Campillo, president of Cesm, warned, “This measure puts patient safety at risk, and we are going to appeal.”

During the pandemic, the 061 emergency ambulance services set up teams of technicians and nurses to collect samples from Covid patients in their homes as a temporary measure. Now, these units have been made permanent and will focus on emergency care in homes or on public roads, with advanced life support ambulances, but doctors are worried they will not have the proper medical training, and there should be doctors present too.

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The Health Minister has defended the fact that these units will provide “immediate” assistance, and will serve to support the emergency medicalised units (UME) and the primary care emergency services (SUAP). The nurses will be in contact with the doctors in the Emergency Coordination Centre room, allowing the results of the tests to be assessed in real time.

But the Medical Union rejects this strategy outright: “In other communities, this measure has failed,” said María José Campillo. “In Alicante, a man died of a heart attack after being attended by such a unit, without a doctor. The nurse came, did an electrocardiogram and only then, when he saw the result, was a doctor sent. But he arrived late.”

Cesm is appealing the creation of these teams in all the autonomous communities where they are being implemented, mainly in the interests of saving money, and will also do so in the Region of Murcia.

“It consists of attending to emergency situations (heart attack, stroke, etc) with nursing professionals and a single doctor by telephone who will not have the possibility of attending the patient in person,” continued Campillo, criticising the measure for “prioritising savings over quality of care”.

Related story: Mazarrón health centres get round-the-clock ambulance service

Image: CARM

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