These two coastal urban centres (which were once part of the municipality of Motril but are now semi autonomous) have repeatedly asked the Andaluz Public Health Board (SAS) to provide administrative staff to manage appointments, amongst other tasks. However, they claim, SAS has turned a deaf ear.

So, what did they do about it? They’re covering this lack of staff using their own funds by hiring janitors and ended up doing administrative tasks as well.

The First Councilor for this semi-independent entity (ELA) Juan Alberto Ferrer, explained, “We knew that without somebody at the desk, locals would be left stranded without appointments and without information.” Which is why, they bit the bullet and paid for an employee to cover this task.

In fact, they created two janitor positions to fill that gap, and since then, those individuals have worked in the doctor’s surgery, performing administrative assistant duties. As time passed, these janitors wanted to be considered Auxiliar Administrativo instead of simply janitors, as they were carrying out administrative duties rather than maintenance tasks.

However, the Town Hall said that they were janitors and that was how they would remain because they couldn’t change their job title to that off a civil servant as that comes under the Junta.

Well, one of these two workers decided to sue the Town Hall and the judge determined they could no longer perform administrative functions without being hired as Auxiliar Administrativos.

Consequently, these workers have been sent to perform strictly janitorial duties elsewhere, leaving the doctor’s surgeries without anybody looking after the clerical side of things.

OK, you can make appointments online, using the SAS phone app, but as First Councillor Ferrer pointed out, most of the users are elderly and little accostumed to online fandangles. They want to be attended to by a human – something that we all prefer but increasingly are instead confronted by non-human systems that lead you round in circles.

Carchuna & Calahonda are not exactly swamped by doctors, either as their 5,000 inhabitants have just one doctor and one nurse at each doctor’s sugery. Now, with this court ruling these overworked doctors and nurses are also burdened with administrative duties as well.

(News: Carchuna/Calahonda, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Sources/MJ Arrebola/Ideal)

Keywords: Doctors’ surgeries, Janitors Rebel, Administrative Staff, Handle Appointments, Attend to the Public

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