Monographic on patients in a new edition of IDIálogoS

Chronicity, prevention, digitization and innovation in complex patient care systems and health and socio-health coordination are presented as the great challenges after covid

from left On the right, Marta Villanueva, Carlos Mascías, Julián Isla, Carina Escobar and Juan Abarca/Photo provided by the IDIS Foundation

The pandemic situation that we are still suffering has put our health system on the ropes and has shown the need to carry out urgent measures to face all the challenges we face. The time to favor and promote change has come.

This is how the IDIS Foundation summarizes a new day of IDIálogoS, in a monographic debate on patients two years after the outbreak of covid and in full decline of the sixth wave of the coronavirus.

“We have to reform the functioning of our health system so that it prioritizes the figure of the patient, giving institutional recognition to associations. It is key that the voice of patients is listened to with greater attention and, for this, it is necessary not only that they raise, raise and transmit their concerns and worries to the social debate, but also that channels and tools are offered to them through their representatives. of communication with decision-makers in the different areas of the health and social spectrum”, has pointed out john coverspresident of the Institute for the Development and Integration of Healthcare (IDIS Foundation), during the conference And now that? Monographic patients.

This forum has broken down the pre-pandemic problems, which persist, and those that have worsened after the last two years, in an analysis carried out from the perspective of patients.

In this IDIálogoS have participated:

• Carina Escobar, President of the Platform of Patient Organizations.

• Carlos Mascias, medical director of the HM Torrelodones University Hospital.

• Julian Island, Director of Data and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft.

Issues such as delays in diagnoses, increased waiting lists, access difficulties, equity problems, etc… have been put on the table, which have arisen in the Covid context and how it has affected patients.

The speakers have questioned the validity of the pillars on which the health system has been based until now.

Poor care for chronic patients in the pandemic

And by way of example, it has been highlighted that 43% of chronic patients have worsened in the last two years or that only 7% have been treated at the time they needed it.

In this sense, the speakers have pointed out that it is key to analyze the problems that exist, return to attendance, work on directed public health, change processes and improve access in all areas.

Likewise, they have pointed out the need to give prominence to concepts such as prevention, innovation in care systems for complex patients and health coordination in order to obtain the best health and health results.

During the debate, reports the IDIS Foundation, it has been ensured that, at a time of instability in the health and social health system, it is necessary to carry out reforms and bet on digital transformation, interoperability and continuity of care as part of the solutions at the problems.

The focus on the patient

It is essential that the system focuses its efforts on the patient, offering multidisciplinary care, understanding him, and taking his voice into account.

In this context, in order to be truly protagonists and to be involved in the decisions that affect them, it is important, as they have pointed out, that patients have their clinical data and can share it where they need to do so.

Finally, dependency and care at home, transcending outside the hospital, through a sufficient and adequate infrastructure that alleviates in some way the hospitalocentrism that we have at the moment is also an essential issue that must be addressed, summarizes the IDIS Foundation.

Martha Villanuevageneral director of the IDIS Foundation and moderator of the session, pointed out that “This new cycle of IDIálogoS aims to shed light on where efforts should be directed to strengthen the health system and so that health care does not get worse, once the pandemic is over“.

Image of one of the IDIS Foundation reports

The support network for families with autistic patients created by Chocoanas - Other Cities - Colombia

9,365 kilometers away, when the pandemic locked down the world, two women from Choco came together for a social initiative that continues to grow. An alliance so that the families of your department with autistic patients find active communication formulas and can share knowledge in the same specialized care space. Haidy Sánchez Mattsson is a psychologist and lives in Umea, called the city of birches, twelve hours by bus from Stockholm (Sweden). Amparo Palacios Mosquera is a social worker who lives in the El Jardín de Quibdó neighborhood.

(Enter the special: United Colombia, where differences can live)

Haidy Sánchez works at the specialized center Habiliteringscentrum on issues of autism, cognitive disorder or rehabilitation in multiple disabilities. She spent eleven more years at the Elevhansan Institute, in contact with the daily challenges of patient care. She has been in Sweden for two decades where she started a family with a natal doctor, but her parents, her siblings and part of her heart are still in Quibdó, where she was born and raised. On a trip back to the family with a study plan on board, he met Amparo Palacios and an agreement of wills arose for a higher reason.

In 2015, Amparo Palacios, after a long trip between the capital of Chocó and Medellín in search of answers, Yeison, her second son, was finally diagnosed with autism. Without health security or social protection to face her dilemma in the city or in the department, the guide came from Haidy Sánchez. The psychologist was seeking to add a chapter from Chocó to a Sweden-Colombia binational evaluation on the stress that autism generates among families. So they met, exchanged contacts, began to greet each other on WhatsApp. And so, from chat to chat, the union took place.

Currently, Amparo Palacios officiates as the legal representative of the non-profit foundation Fundautismo Chocó, established in the midst of the pandemic to confront the spectrum of autism. And from the other side of the world, closer to the North Pole, Haidy Sánchez works as a relationship worker and coordinator of activities in Colombia. December 19, 2021 was the last day. They have five virtual and two face-to-face in fourteen months. There are already thirty families from Quibdó and Istmina united by a network interested in guidance so that they know what to do. Amparo Palacios knows what that meant to Yeison.

At least 30 families from Quibdó and Istmina have joined the support network.

While Haidy Sánchez tells the story to journalists, manages talks with experts and provides resources for workshops, Amparo Palacios moves with her circle of support in Quibdó. Both would like to reach the borders of San Juan and Atrato because they know that in any of the remote villages of Chocó there are autistic minors who require stimulation and caregivers who need training. Specialized neuropediatric care. But they are low-income families and live in a region where the EPS survive. Occupational or speech therapies are read in books.

A care desert that led Haidy Sánchez and Amparo Palacios to convince themselves that, with no help in sight, they had to look for her. And in each case, first the fire of blood ties vibrates. For Haidy Sánchez, her brother Alexander, economist, health manager, and her Santa Sofía de Asís Foundation, which covers more than missing. Amparo Palacios also mentions her brother Carlos Palacios, a sports instructor, who risks it so that those attending the workshops return. Therapist Tatiana Carrillo provides an assessment from Cartagena. Speech therapist from Barranquilla, Nitza Guzmán adds a talk.

Haidy Sánchez sends weekly letters to public and private institutions, both national and international, asking them to look at Chocó and the minimum it requires to shield its special population. Amparo Palacios keeps the network active and with her sister-in-law Mónica Minotta and her accountant Ruth Yadira Palacios, they support the daily life of Fundautismo Chocó, which abounds in volunteers. The bet is to get a seat. A meeting point to receive professionals and train families, until no one has to go necessarily to Medellín or Bogotá to seek a diagnosis or therapy.

More than the website or the digital network, the challenge now is for Fundautismo Chocó to execute its plans

It is not a quixotic nor does it constitute a clamor. The severe behavioral dilemmas of autistic people, their limitations in communication, the vague strategies of parents to deal with the issue, or the weariness involved in treating them in terms of emotional fatigue and depression, summarize what the challenge of these women means. Especially in Chocó, where everything is missing. But Haidy Sánchez and Amparo Palacios are not alone. From Barranquilla, the president of Fundautismo in that city, Mariolis Rojas, has been generous in advice. The same as the educational psychologist Nairobis González and the Paidos corporation, which remains attentive from Ibagué.

There are hands that add up, but the reality is harsh. With luck, families with autistic minors will have to wait for the EPS to send them to other cities. There is no characterization of the problem or an instructive minimum for households. In contrast, says Haidy Sánchez, “in Sweden all patients with mental retardation, down syndrome or cognitive disorders have comprehensive health treatment, guaranteed by the State, throughout life.” For this reason, together with their allies and Fundautismo Chocó, they cling to the conviction that we must continue knocking on doors until one opens.

Haidy Sánchez leads support network for autism in Chocó

On the family side, Haidy Sánchez and Amparo Palacios know that, within their limitations, the social inclusion secretaries do what they can, as does the Colombian Autism League. That’s why they weave their own network and care little if the State has the department at the bottom of the line. They they only expect permanent medical and psychological guidance and therapies for their children. The ideal is to provide quality of life in the face of neurobiological complexity. “More than the website or the digital network, the challenge now is for Fundautismo Chocó to be able to execute its plans,” highlights Haidy Sánchez.

“My son is 14 years old and I have him at home since I was looking for places in many facilities in Quibdó and they did not accept him anywhere.” “At school they no longer received the boy because he behaves aggressively. He is sleepy sometimes and the doctors haven’t told me why he eats things from the garbage.” They are messages that they receive daily and demonstrate the precariousness of Chocó in caring for its special population. A mother says that the teacher was changed for political reasons and that now her child no longer eats. Another says that no matter what condition you have, your child has rights.

Haidy Sánchez and Amparo Palacios try to answer the concerns, while expanding their database to other municipalities of Quibdó. They know that, in addition to the health, economic and educational shortcomings of the majority of Chocó families, in homes with autistic patients everything is more difficult. Scientific studies show that parents or primary caregivers of children or adolescents with autism have high levels of stress. Also for them they trust that Quibdó has a specialized center for common support to patients and protectors.

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United Colombia

Antioquia: Debts to hospitals and patients left by Coomeva worry - Medellín - Colombia

There is concern in the hospital sector of the region for what they consider to be a new risk that the millionaire portfolio accumulated by Coomeva with the hospitals of Antioquia ends up staying without anyone responsible.

In the department there were 223,817 affiliated patients and the debt is estimated at $207,278 million as of June of last year, of which about $150,000 million correspond to non-performing loans.

Although they appear to be two separate problems, they are intertwined, because the same debts caused members to stop receiving health services on time.

Since February 1, the 14 EPS that received Coomeva patients in the country must be providing their health services, which has generated long lines in the capital of Antioquia.

Jilmar Renteria Delgado, coordinator of the Observatory of the Fundamental Right to Health of the Personería de Medellín, indicated that this entity will accompany the distribution of the more than 100,000 members that the EPS has only in Medellín, so that it occurs in a timely manner, after the obstacles they have suffered.

In 2021, from the Personería de Medellín, nearly 2,000 guardianships were established for health issues, of which 135 were to claim services from Coomeva. In turn, this agency of the Public Ministry filed 53 incidents for disobeying the decisions of the judges in the guardianships.

They were themes of death walks because the clinics, many times, due to the high debt they have from Coomeva, if it was not a vital emergency, they did not accept the patient

The main causes of these guardianships were to achieve the recognition of disability licenses, delivery of medicines or supplies, appointments with specialists (orthopedics, ophthalmology and psychiatry) and difficulties in the processes of referring patients to the second or third level of complexity. .

“Patients had to travel to all the municipalities of the Aburrá Valley in order to access care, including some cases from Eastern Antioquia that had to travel from Medellín so that health care could be guaranteed, which seems extremely serious to me. because they could not access a second or third level of care, they were subjects of death walks because the clinics, many times, due to the high debt they have from Coomeva, if it was not a vital emergency, they did not accept the patient”affirmed the official of the Personería.

Watch out for hospitals

As for the 125 public hospital centers in Antioquia, the amount of the debt amounts to around 75,000 million pesos, a value that is part of the 1.1 billion pesos that all EPSs owe these hospitals.

This was pointed out by Luis Alberto Martínez, from the Association of Social Enterprises of the State of Antioquia (AESA), which brings together 115 public hospitals in the department, who reported that there are 51 hospitals in the department at financial risk, so debts like these are harm more.

“Around 300,000 million are owed by EPS that we call them in inactive quotes, some because they are liquidated and others because they are not liquidated, but they left the department, for example Medimás, Saludcoop, Cafesalud, the Preventive Medical Foundation, “said Martínez.

And he added that the decision to liquidate Coomeva was taken late by the Supersalud, taking into account that it was already intervened, it presented financial, behavioral and care indicators for the population that showed its serious problems.

On the patient side, they had to resort to guardianships and the delay in caring for people because Coomeva did not pay in a timely manner, but now the problem has been transferred to the receiving EPS.

“The biggest problems occur in the medium and especially in the high complexity, second and third levels, because there are many treatments there that were in the making, that were pending initiation, cancer patients or those with chronic diseases with high cost,” added Martínez.

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MEDELLIN

More patients without stroke sequelae after changing the time of treatment

The Hospital Clínic de Barcelona has shown that a change in the timing of administering a treatment that is already used to treat ischemic stroke increases the chances of the patient obtaining an excellent recovery and without sequelae three months after the procedure by up to 59%. .

This marks a before and after stroke treatment”, highlighted the Head of the Cerebral Vascular Pathology Unit of the Clínic, Ángel Chamorro, coordinator of the CHOICE study with results on the sequelae, which has been presented at the International Stroke Conference in New Orleans (United States) and has been published in the journal «JAMA».

Ischemic stroke, which represents 85% of all embolisms, is caused by the obstruction of a cerebral blood vessel and causes 6 million deaths each year in the world, being the second leading cause of death.

If it does not kill, the stroke can leave important consequences for life -in fact it is the first medical cause of disability in the world-, even in those patients who, mechanically, manage to extract the thrombus from the blood.

an intravenous drug

In the first 24 hours after the appearance of the stroke, the treatment consists of administering an intravenous drug, alteplase; and performing a mechanical thrombectomy, which consists of inserting a catheter through the artery until it reaches the thrombus, in order to extract it.

In 85% of cases it is possible to remove the thrombus and restore blood circulation in the brain, but this is not always a guarantee of complete recovery, since after 3 months many patients present sequelae or some type of disability.

The researchers of clinic and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (Idibaps) suspected that the problem could be that there was thrombosis in the capillary vessels, the “peripheral roads” of the bloodstream network, which can become as fine as a hair and of which it is not possible to have images.

Thus arose the CHOICE projectwhose objective was to test whether the same drug that is given in the first hours of the stroke, alteplase, could help reduce possible damage to the capillaries if administered after thrombectomy to remove the thrombus.

The study, financed with funds from the TV3 Marathon, had 121 participants, randomly divided into two groups: one was administered the drug after removing the thrombus and the second, placebo.

Javier, a 51-year-old patient who is recovering from a stroke, performs a rehabilitation exercise to avoid sequelae at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital Neurorehabilitation Day Hospital, EFE/Toni Albir

The results of the CHOICE project

The results have demonstrated the efficacy of this change in treatment: in the placebo group, 40% of the patients remained without sequelae and with independent life, without disability, while among those who received the drug after thrombectomy the percentage it rose to 59%, a difference therefore of 19% between the two groups.

The advantage of this study is that the drug is already available in hospitals, so as of this Thursday there will be “many professionals in the world who will begin to do it,” Dr. Chamorro ventured.

In any case, for the most “skeptical”, he has considered that a second study will be necessary with a more “robust” sample of patients so that the new procedure is validated and can be included in the clinical guidelines, a process that could be completed between this year and the next, he estimated.

For its part, the neurologist at Clínic-IDIBAPS and coordinator of the clinical trial, Arturo Renú, has specified that, although they have shown a “better efficacy” of the drug “once the artery is opened”, this does not mean that it has to be stopped before thrombectomy, as is currently done: “Only if You have a little drug left after the first administration, save it because it will work very well later, “he advised.

María Barranco is one of the patients who was fortunate to emerge unscathed from the stroke he suffered a year ago: “I was lucky that Dr. Renú’s team took me in right away and now I’ve realized that I was luckier to be in the drug group.”

Personería de Barranquilla monitors care for EPS patients - Barranquilla - Colombia

The District Personery of Barranquilla initiated special surveillance of all the EPS after learning of the decision of guardianship of the Third Municipal Civil Court that favors children and older adults with cognitive and physical disabilities, whose care had been denied by the liquidated Coomeve EPS.

According to the aforementioned ruling, the Health Promoting Entities, EPS now involved in care are: MutualSer, Sanitas, Cajacopi, New EPS, Compensate, Sura, Total Health and Coosalud that they must, within 48 hours following the notification of this ruling, “restore and guarantee the continuity and provision of health services without interruption required by the plaintiffs, especially nursing, according to the health conditions of the guardians in the same way that it had been previously provided by Coomeva EPS SA”, underlines the court order.

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As will be remembered, the tutela action was filed by the Personero de Barranquilla Miguel Angel Alzate Salcedo; the Regional Ombudsman, Miguel Linero De Cambil Álvarez and the Atlantic Provincial and Regional Attorney, Margarita De la Hoz Jureacting as informal agents of those affected.

The provision of health services without interruption required by the plaintiffs, especially nursing, according to the health conditions of the guardians

In its ruling, the Judge warns of the need and urgency to attend to the requirement raised by the plaintiffs, before the liquidation of Coomeva EPS SA, that in the peremptory term of 48 hours following the notification, the provision of services is guaranteed. required prescribed by the treating physicians in theas EPS in mention.

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The plaintiffs are children, adolescents and elderly people with disabilities, affiliated with Coomeva EPS, with diagnoses of cerebral palsy, autism, behavioral disorder, Down syndrome, Lenos Gastaws, orphan refractory epilepsy disease, disability due to tumor cerebral and total exhaustion, among others.

It was established in what was stated in the guardianship that since December 28, 2021, Coomeva EPS arbitrarily suspended the 24-hour nursing service for children, adolescents and elderly people with disabilities.

Miguel Alzate Salcedo, representative of Barranquilla.

The medical nursing service was suspended because Coomeva EPS stopped paying the value of the same to the provider Hogar Salud IPS.

(Be sure to read: Barranquilla merchants announce march against extortion)

Following this decision, Coomeva EPS not only failed to comply with pending payments to Home Health IPS to continue with the nursing service, but, on the contrary, imposed another provider: Amadis IPS.

There are 3,000 guardianships against Coomeva

Given all these irregularities, the National Health Superintendency ordered on January 25, 2022 the liquidation of EPS Coomeva, after evidencing the impossibility of correcting the financial situation in which it finds itself and as protection for the life and health of its 1.2 million affiliates in 24 departments of the country .

According to information from the Superintendency, the EPS has liabilities close to 1.7 trillion pesos, a level of indebtedness of 1.6 times the value of the asset, a gap of 204,230 million pesos in adequate equity and accumulated losses of more than one billion pesos. pesos.

In the last three years, EPS affiliates filed 30,000 guardianships and 193,100 complaints and claims for poor provision of health services.

BARRANQUILLA

Catastrophic impact of the pandemic on cancer patients

The impact of the coronavirus on the health system has had a “catastrophic” effect on cancer patients and, in some countries, up to 50% of diagnostic, review and treatment services have been affected, the regional office has warned. WHO European

X-ray of a lung with cancer

The director of WHO-Europe, Hans Kluge, has lamented the “deadly interaction” created by the covid-19 pandemic and has highlighted that 44% of countries worldwide reported an increase in delays in cancer-related services. in the second half of 2021.

During the start of the pandemic, diagnoses of invasive tumors fell, for example, by 44% in Belgium; Colorectal cancer screenings fell by 46% in Italy and the number of cancers diagnosed in Spain in 2020 was 34% lower than expected.

The global situation regarding cancer health care has improved in the last months of the pandemic, but the chain reaction caused by these alterations will be felt “for years,” Kluge stressed.

The director of WHO-Europe admitted that health personnel are “overwhelmed” and “exhausted” after two years of the pandemic, but at the same time emphasized the importance of redirecting an “unprecedented” situation.

“Any respite from the broad immunity provided by vaccination and the less severe omicron variant, coupled with the arrival of spring and summer, should be used immediately to allow health workers to return to other important roles and reduce delays in chronic ailment services,” he claimed.

Cancer is one of the main causes of mortality and disease in the European region and accounts for 20% of all deaths registered in it, although between 30 and 40% of those registered are preventable, the WHO pointed out on the eve of the World Cancer Day, which is commemorated on February 4.

One million undiagnosed cases of cancer due to the pandemic

One million cases of cancer were not diagnosed in Europe due to the pandemic, which prevented 100 million screening tests for a disease that is the second leading cause of death on the continent and the first in children over one year of age, according to a report from the European Parliament.

Another of the conclusions of the report, presented this Thursday in Madrid by three Spanish MEPs who are members of the European Parliament commission that prepared it, is that one in five cancer patients did not receive the surgical or chemotherapy treatment they needed on time during the health emergency.

The special commission for the Fight against Cancer (BECA, in English), which includes MEPs Nicolás González Casares (PSOE), Dolors Montserrat (PP) and Margarita de la Pisa (Vox), approved the report on the 9th of December and its vote in the plenary session of the European Parliament (EP) will take place the week of February 14.

The director of WHO-Europe, Hans Kluge, in a file image. EFE/EPA/IDA GULDBAEK ARENTSEN

Blood cancer patients potentially cured with CAR T

The innovative cell therapy with CAR T lymphocytes is achieving, in blood cancers, “potentially cured patients” in cases that no longer had other treatment options. Interview with the president-elect of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH), María Victoria Mateos, on World Cancer Day.

The elected president of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH), María Victoria Mateos, at the University Hospital of Salamanca. EFE/JM Garcia

Image: SEHH Edition: Nerea Díaz-Maroto

CAR T immunotherapy consists of genetically modifying the patient’s T lymphocytes so that they carry a receptor on their surface that directs them towards malignant cells and, once it binds to them, activates and manages to destroy them.

This cell therapy is one of the latest-generation drugs that is changing the course of the disease by increasing survival in the most common blood cancers: lymphomas, leukemias and myeloma.

It is approved for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (in children and adults) and for some types of lymphoma (such as diffuse large cell non-Hodgkin or mantle lymphoma) and now a drug has just been authorized for relapsed multiple myeloma that has not yet arrived to Spain.

“We have a proportion of patients, 30-40%, that we can consider potentially cured or, at least, long survivors for 5 or 6 years when before they did not have many more treatment options, these are very positive data”, explains the specialist. of the Department of Hematology of the University Clinical Hospital of Salamanca

CAR T cell therapy consists of a single infusion, unlike conventional chemotherapy treatment that requires longer periods of time, and this affects the quality of life of the patient.

This immunotherapy is already positioned “as a standard of treatment to achieve curative strategies” for an increasing number of patients and towards earlier lines for hematological cancers, since in solid tumors they are still in the research phase, he specifies.

According to the expert, after a first implementation of this strategy in a dozen hospitals of the National Health System, “the time for expansion has come” as it has a manageable safety profile, is feasible and has more and more candidate patients.

The challenge of asymptomatic myeloma

María Victoria Mateos is an international benchmark in multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects the plasma cells of the bone marrow that causes bone pain, anemia or kidney failure and is diagnosed, on average, at 65 years of age.

“I think we’re scared to say we cure myeloma patients, but we have them. It has gone from being a disease that did not have more than 2 or 3 years of survival to patients with free disease to progress for more than 9 and 10 years, “says the also head of the Myeloma Unit at the Salamanca Hospital.

As a researcher and coordinator of the Spanish Myeloma Group (GEM), she works on the challenge of detecting this cancer early, in a premalignant stage, and controlling it before it becomes active, which in high-risk cases does so after a few two years.

“And we embarked on that in 2007 with a pioneering clinical trial in the world, we proved that early treatment benefited these patients. It was the starting point for a large number of clinical trials worldwide, ”he highlights.

For this reason, the person also responsible for the Myeloma Unit at the Salamanca Hospital insists on the need to access new therapies where the outlook is “hopeful”.

The elected president of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH), María Victoria Mateos, in the Clinical Trials Unit of the Hematology Department that she coordinates at the Clinical Hospital of Salamanca. EFE/JM Garcia

Spain lags behind in access to innovative drugs

These next-generation drugs are the ones that are increasing survival in hematological cancers, third in the general classification of cancer after lung and breast tumors.

In Spain, some 10,000 cases of lymphoma, 6,000 of leukemia and 3,000 of multiple myeloma are diagnosed annually, with a gradual increase in survival thanks also to earlier and more precise diagnoses due to knowledge of molecular markers, targets of therapies.

Dr. María Victoria Mateos, president-elect of the Society of Hematology and coordinator of the Myeloma Unit at the Clinical Hospital of Salamanca. EFE/JMGARCIA

A therapeutic revolution in which Spain is lagging “far behind” because the health authorities do not see the “magnitude of the benefit” of some medicines that, although they are tested in clinical trials in Spanish hospitals, are not authorized or financed so that they arrive to all patients.

“It is very frustrating – he regrets – to work with drugs, with new combinations, that we offer to some patients in clinical trials, that later the regulatory agencies at European level approve, but that in the end you cannot give to the patient”.

If there is no universal access to oncology innovation, “I would dare to say that Spain may no longer be the ideal place to carry out clinical trials”, tests that have an impact on overall survival, warns the coordinator of the Clinical Trials Unit of the Department of Hematology of the Salamanca Hospital.

“Even more so -he points out- with the entry into force of the new regulations for the development of clinical trials where the aim is to speed up and make clinical trials reach the entire European community at the same time. Before it did not happen and Spain was a priority country ».

“The bottleneck is in the Spanish Medicines Agency”, points out the hematologist who understands that, specifically, the coronavirus pandemic will delay the evaluation processes of innovative cancer drugs.

“But now -he assures- it is already unblocking, there are evaluations, the problem is if the result of these evaluations is ‘no financing’ for these drugs”.

And the reason is, according to the hematologist, that “the Ministry of Health does not see the magnitude of the benefit” that, in the specific case of drugs for blood cancers, are changing the course of the disease.

Mateos calls on the Ministry of Health to meet with researchers and doctors and reach a “consensus” that avoids the lack of equity in Spain compared to other European countries.

“I think we have to get our act together and try to force innovation to reach patients,” he insists.

Next October, María Victoria Mateos will assume the presidency of the SEHH with the experience of being a member of the European and American societies of Hematology and member of the Executive Committee of the International Myeloma Society, with more than 150 publications in scientific journals.

Mateos, who will replace Dr. Ramón García Sanz, will be the second woman at the head of this medical society after the hematologist Carmen Burgaleta, who held the presidency from 2011 to 2013.