Today, in an extraordinary Consell de Govern, the Government approved a decree law on urgent measures to attract and retain health professionals. The decree provides for the legal regulation of areas of difficult coverage and the declaration of new areas of very difficult coverage. In addition, it eliminates the requirement of knowledge of Catalan for access to jobs with health functions in the Health Service. As they explained after the Consell de Govern, increasing the number of healthcare staff is an urgent task in order to guarantee care and reduce waiting lists. Thus, it is essential to maintain the number of doctors and other health personnel, and to facilitate the arrival of new professionals.

Elimination of the requirement for knowledge of Catalan

With the approval of this new decree, the selection and provision of personnel with healthcare functions will allow access to the best qualified professionals, without the lack of official accreditation of a certain level of Catalan becoming a deterrent to access. The Regional Ministry of Health will ensure that, once in the administration, people who do not have a certain level of Catalan can be trained or improve their knowledge of the Catalan language, with the collaboration of the administration, through the promotion of appropriate courses. This will facilitate citizens’ right to use either of the two official languages in their relations with the administration. Likewise, the procedures for the provision of personnel will assess the different levels of knowledge of Catalan as a merit.

Difficult-to-fill posts

The decree states that a job that is difficult to fill is a professional category or speciality, the filling of which is difficult for technical or geographical reasons. In order to make these places and areas attractive, a complementary remuneration supplement is created. In the Health Service, positions and jobs that are difficult to fill are considered to be those occupied by statutory health staff in categories A1 and A2 who work in the health areas of Menorca and Ibiza and Formentera.

Furthermore, in those cases in which there is a structural deficit in the provision of services and there is an urgent need that prevents the portfolio of services in the corresponding health area from being guaranteed, the Consell de Govern, at the request of the director general of the Health Service, may declare new posts, areas or functions to be very difficult to cover, taking into account insularity as a differentiating factor. The resolution of the Consell de Govern will specify the amounts that these professionals must receive, as well as the duration of the measure. These amounts may be up to a maximum increase of 300% above the current allowance for posts classified as difficult to fill.