Changes to access La Meva Salut: "They haven't thought about the elderly"

BarcelonaIn mid-October, José Fernández's La Meva Salut password will expire and he will have to log in to this application through IdCAT Mòbil, a digital identification system for procedures and online services with Catalan administrations. This option will start working from September 15 for expiring passwords and new users and, according to the Department of Health, it offers more security and ends the headache of remembering personal passwords. The problem, however, is that the IdCAT code can only be linked to one phone number and one identity document. In other words, if nothing changes, from January next year each user will have to have a reference phone number and a single person will not be able to manage medical appointments or access a third person's medical history. This is the case of José Fernández, who has just turned 95 and without a phone, his daughter Núria acts as his “secretary” with medical procedures, he says laughing as he enters the health center for a blood test. Núria Fernández admits that she has not attempted to change the system, but it does not convince her because she understands that it “will make a system that already worked more complicated”.

Until now, this woman has kept her own and her father's password in her phone's memory and uses them automatically by typing one identification or another. She receives the one-time code on her terminal and continues with the procedure. “Has anyone thought about those of us who manage the schedules of the elderly or disabled before announcing the change?”, she questions. The Department of Health has limited itself to informing that next week it will organize a press conference to explain the new system.

Like at the banks

Fernández complains about the lack of “empathy” shown by public administrations that, “far from helping, make things worse”. How can this be solved? He suggests that a good way would be to copy the functioning of banking entities, which allow one client to “authorize” another – in this case, children, spouse, or guardians – to carry out transactions. “If you can do it with money, can’t you do it with a visit to the CAP?”, he poses.

A similar situation is presented by the Ros family, but multiplied by two. In this case, Josep uses his mobile phone for his own use, for his 85-year-old mother, and for an adult daughter with an intellectual disability who does not have a phone. A few days ago, he tried to transfer his data to the IdCAT, but encountered a message that prevented him from completing the process because the phone number he provided was already linked to a person. “What do they want, for us to have three phones just for health?”, complains Josep Ros, who points out that it is a “ministry error” that will only “make the wage gap wider”.

The discontent over the new access route to La Meva Salut has already reached the Ombudsman, who has begun to receive the first complaints. “Perhaps it is a good way for people with skills in internet and mobile phones, but not for those who do not even have a telephone device”, points out Fernández.