The budgets of the autonomies dedicated to the Primary Care grow only six hundredths between 2022 and 2023, from 14.93% to 14.99%well below the 25% target of the public health budget recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
This is stated in the report presented this Thursday by the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health (FADSP), which considers that these data reveal the “low sensitivity towards Primary Care of the autonomous governments” and justify the social and professional mobilizations to “dedicate to this first level of assistance the budgetary effort it deserves”.
The report places the Madrid’s community as the autonomy that less will be allocated to Primary Care in 2023 (10.73%) of the public health budget, extending the same figure from this year, the same as Catalonia does, with 16.80% while the community that Cantabria will invest the most in Primary Carewith 17.94%.
among those of lower investmentin addition to the Community of Madrid, is located Navarrewith 13% and reducing its percentage 2.2 points compared to 2022, followed by Balearics Y Galiciawith 14.2% and 14.9%, respectively.
At a press conference, the FADSP spokesman, Marciano Sanchez Baylehas underlined the negligible growth in the budget allocated to Primary Care for 2023 and has calculated that if the communities allocate 25% of the public health budget, as requested by the public health platforms, they would have 8,694 million euros more and the average per inhabitant would be 452 eurosalmost 200 euros more than the current average.
Sánchez Bayle has underlined the great variability between communities and has stressed that the situation in the Community of Madrid is “dramatic”, “the worst of all”. With these data, the FADSP spokesman predicted that in 2023 the situation of Primary Care will not experience any significant change from the current situation“as would have been desirable”.
The FADSP also includes in its publication that the per inhabitant budget dedicated to Primary Care in the 2022 and 2023 budgets rises 6.92%, going from 251.53 euros per person per year to 268.95that is to say 17.42 euros more.
In this case, the one that designates the most is Asturias with 347.8 euros per person in 2023 (35 euros more than this year) and, again, the least Community of Madrid, with only 155.02 euros. Precisely in the per inhabitant budget chapter, the Community of Madrid also extends, together with Catalonia, the amount assigned per capita.
Sánchez Bayle has revealed “difficulties” in preparing the report “due to the lack of transparency of the communities”, and has explained that it has not been possible to identify the budget in five autonomiesnot even through its transparency portals.
From the FADSP they have insisted on the difficulty of debugging the figures since some communities “conceal” the budget data for health care by including those of Primary and Specialized Carewhile others include pharmaceutical expenses for prescriptions.
The FADSP has explained that when calculating the budget that each region assigns to Primary Care have excluded pharmaceutical spending.
