The councillor for Health and Social Services, Alejandro Vázquez, has announced in the Plenary Session of the Cortes that the Board is processing a new regulatory order with which it is intended to "double" travel, accommodation and subsistence allowances for patients from Castilla y León who must travel to receive healthcare. The aim of the regional Executive is for this regulation to come to light in the first weeks of next year.
During the parliamentary debate, and in response to a question from the procurator for Soria Ya, Ángel Ceña Tutor, the head of Health has clearly admitted that the current amounts "are not sufficient". Vázquez has stressed that the increase in these allowances forms part of an express commitment by the president of the Board, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, made in March and reflected in the agreement of the regional Government.
As the councillor has explained, the future order will raise compensation for travel up to 0.18 euros per kilometre, set the subsistence allowance at 12 euros per day, and set the contribution for accommodation at 43.2 euros per day.
Vázquez has emphasized that these improvements will extend to all patients and accompanying persons who are entitled to the benefit in any province of the community, and has conditioned their entry into force on the final approval of the regional Budgets.
In his turn to reply, the procurator for Soria Ya, Ángel Ceña Tutor, has criticized the eight-month delay in implementing this increase and has considered that the current amounts are still far from covering the real cost of healthcare trips.
Ceña has also reproached that the Board pays 26 cents per kilometre to regional parliamentarians while it only pays nine cents to displaced patients, and has demanded an update of the income thresholds required in order to be able to apply for these public grants.