• Health Madrid will have the first residence for ALS patients and will subsidize the glasses of minors up to 14 years old

A day center that will support 60 patients and their families and a future monothematic hospital focused on the neurodegenerative disease orphan of treatment and help: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS. The Community of Madrid with these two steps is committed to providing coverage to these patients from a socio-health point of view. This has been transmitted by the Minister of Health, Fátima Matute, who has presented the strategic lines of her legislature.

Matute has deepened during the briefing with the media this and other issues that he considers essential within his roadmap. The star measure is the implementation of a day care center for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the Isabel Zendal Nurse Hospital, which is expected to be operational next February.

This center will have the capacity to house around 60 patients and will have an infrastructure known as a third caregiver, aimed at creating friendly, comfortable spaces that help optimize the care patients receive. The center's portfolio of services will include, among others, nursing care, rehabilitation with physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychological care. It will also have a bank of technical and technological aids that will be available to patients, such as adapted tablets or canes. Both initiatives will have their own health personnel.

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Bless you.

"I investigate ALS from the CNIO because we have to give visibility to this disease"

  • Writing: PILAR PÉREZ Madrid

"I investigate ALS from the CNIO because we have to give visibility to this disease"

Stories.

The unique story of Elsa and Mario, two brothers with ALS: "I do not understand that the deputies raise their salaries and my children can not live with dignity"

  • Writing: PILAR PÉREZ Madrid
  • Writing: ÁNGEL NAVARRETE (Graphic report)

The unique story of Elsa and Mario, two brothers with ALS: "I do not understand that the deputies raise their salaries and my children can not live with dignity"

Along with this center, the counselor has indicated that the regional Executive continues to work on the creation of a pioneering residence dedicated exclusively to the comprehensive care of ALS, which will be built in the old Puerta de Hierro Hospital and is expected to be underway before the end of the legislature. It will have 190 beds: 120 for functional recovery of medium stay, 20 for palliative and 50 for the residential center. The execution of the work has an investment of 73 million euros.

'MadridTeCuida'

Matute also highlighted during the meeting the upcoming launch of MadridTeCuida, an information channel on the website of the Community of Madrid that also has a mobile application. Its objective is to provide truthful, effective and accessible information on health issues that combats Internet searches on sites that contain information "the reliability of which is not guaranteed".

It will have a panel of answers to frequently asked questions and, to ensure rigor,health professionals will answer the most complex questions. For simpler questions, the system will have a chatbox that, through artificial intelligence, will answer simple questions.

According to the ministry, there will be several subjects on which information will be provided: allergies and medicines and foods, symptoms of covid-19, digestive problems, skin lesions, care in pregnancy and childbirth, respiratory problems, vaccines, anxiety, depression, insomnia ... To these, new entries will be constantly added.

Lung cancer screening

Prevention, as highlighted by the head of Health, is a main axis of action for the Ministry of Madrid. As proof of this, the region hopes to have the design of a pilot study to measure the integration of its own lung cancer screening program. This program will revolve around the Cassandra project, devised by the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (Separ) and developed in collaboration with all scientific societies dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment and research in lung cancer and institutions and patients.

Through this project, the Community of Madrid will seek to prevent and screen not only lung cancer, but also the different diseases caused by tobacco consumption. There will be a working group within the ministry.

The new Minister of Health of the Community of Madrid, Fátima Matute, during a meeting with the press. ANGEL NAVARRETEMUNDO

Likewise, Matute recalled other screening and early detection projects in which Madrid is also working. For example, within the Prevecolon program, citizens, through pharmacies, will have access from the beginning of next year to kits for the diagnosis of colon cancer. In addition, the expansion of Cervicam, the cervical cancer screening program, will continue so that in this legislature it is extended to all women between 25 and 65 years old.

More places for mental health

Matute has also focused during his speech on the need to strengthen the approach to mental health and the pathologies associated with it, paying special attention to the child and adolescent population. On this matter, he stressed that the region will invest around eight million euros in the expansion of the child and adolescent mental health care network. This will involve "doubling the places" of the children's day hospitals in the general hospitals of Sermas and medium-stay intensive treatment units.

Along with this, it has announced the implementation of new infrastructures for adolescents and young adults, and that, before the end of 2023, the region will have completed the incorporation of 181 new specialists (including psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nurses and social workers) of the 370 contemplated by the Mental Health and Addictions Plan and the Suicide Prevention Plan, with a budget of 43 million euros.

Home hospital care

Another priority for Madrid is to bet on hospital care at home, turning it into a homogeneous and coordinated assistance. To this end, it is already working to create a home care network that has "a single control center", from where all the assistance received by patients will be coordinated, connecting the different levels of care.

It is estimated that the project will begin in the first half of next year and that it will be gradually expanded. The region, which has 18 public hospitals that have home hospitalization, estimates that the patients most benefited by this initiative will be the elderly and frail, in addition to those patients who have to travel frequently to the hospital.

Professional stabilization

The Community of Madrid has in the attraction and retention of professional talent one of its main priorities in health for the next legislature. For this reason, it is working to convene biennial competitive examinations and transfer competitions that will alternate each year in order to achieve greater stabilization of the templates that make up the Madrid Health Service (Sermas).

On this issue, the counselor has explained that the fact of alternating public offers of employment (OPE) and transfer competitions will facilitate predictability, creating a fixed structure of calls that will be known in advance by professionals who want to apply to them.

During the meeting, the head of Madrid's health has also exposed the figures that show how the temporary employment rate is being reduced in the region. Specifically, it has been explained that the community, after the progressive stabilization of more than 15,600 professionals already incorporated into Sermas, will publish before the end of the year the final lists of approved of the extraordinary process for another 9,574 professionals. "With this, the temporality will have dropped to 27%". Likewise, it was indicated at the meeting that before the end of 2024 the process to stabilize another 34,000 professionals should be completed, "reducing temporary employment in the region to 8%".

  • Health
  • Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • Neurology