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Recognizing that the covid-19 infection among health workers has the

category of occupational disease

has cost the contagion of 118,063 health professionals.

A year of disputes that will be closed with the processing of the decree that articulates that recognition, prepared by the Secretary of State for Social Security, and which has been submitted today for consideration as such in the Council of Ministers.

There was already general support in December.

Then, it was achieved

with the unanimous vote of the Committee on Health and Consumption of the Congress of Deputies

in favor of COVID-19 being considered an occupational disease among staff working in health and social health centers, instead of be considered as a mere "professional contingency derived from a work accident".

Today has taken

the last step to the work of months

of the General Council of Medical Associations, all health unions, scientific societies and various professional groups.

Fernando Hontangas, president of the Health Sector of the CSIF civil servants union, maintains that the news "is good, but it is late."

In this sense, it has announced the intention of the majority union in the Public Administration to "

expressly require the Ministries of Inclusion and Health to classify all cases

of health professionals

as occupational diseases

that are currently computed as occupational accidents."

According to Hontangas, "it is not acceptable that

this measure came after months and months of claims

and that, now, the thousands of professionals who have been affected are forced to go on an individual journey through the courts so that their category is recognized. of occupational disease. Such

recognition must be automatic, ex officio and retroactively

. "

Del Pozo agrees that "the minimum, at this point, is that the measure, approved when approved, does not discriminate against professionals who have already been infected by the virus."

In these months, it has gone from being considered at the beginning as a common sickness leave assimilable to a work accident, to having the rank of "professional contingency" (thanks to two royal decrees: 19/2020 and 28/2020), but neither professionals nor political opposition gave up the battle.

Clear and important concepts

The difference between being

considered an occupational disease or a mere contingency is fundamental

, since the former offers coverage to the worker throughout his life, so that he is protected from all diseases and contingencies derived from the infection until the moment of death.

The consideration of professional contingency derived from a work accident only extends this protection to the professional during the five years after the infection.

" It

is outrageous that we had to wait all this time for the recognized government something that falls under its own weight

. If a professional spends 12 or 14 hours working in direct contact with the virus, where will become infected?

What a bar, in a disco? Especially with all the security problems and lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) that we had during the first wave ", emphasizes Gabriel Del Pozo, general secretary of the CESM union, the first organization that, in the Dawn of the epidemic, put this claim on the table.

Vicente Matas, national member of Urban Primary Care of the Collegiate Medical Organization (OMC), goes even further than the union representatives and asks the Government not to stop at this recognition.

"

The next and obligatory step is for the utility to be recognized as a risk profession, regardless of the current context of the pandemic

."

In addition to championing the recognition of occupational disease "as something that is elementary justice,"

Matas recalls that the Collegiate Medical Organization has for years denounced the discrimination of doctors with respect to other groups

(municipal police, firemen, miners, ertzainas ... .) in matters of taxation and pensions.

"These groups and civil servants have the possibility of retiring with 60 years and 30 contributions thanks to a series of corrective factors that the doctor, as statutory staff, does not enjoy. On the contrary,

the mandatory guards that the doctor has to do to throughout most of their professional career, they neither count as working time, nor do they contribute to Social Security.

Considering the medical profession as a risk profession could be the way to end discrimination against our group ", points out Matas .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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