It was January 5, 2023. The nurse became a patient. She found someone to replace her, took a leave of absence from work and rushed to the doctor’s appointment for which she had been waiting for two months. The doctor who treated her in the social security, after learning about her case, felt that she needed the attention of two specialists. They gave him the dates of their appointments, one for the 7th of June and the other for the 16th of the same month. On June 7, he repeated the exchange and license and left early because it took him at least half an hour to arrive. She came on time, they just told her that they could not see her because the doctor is on vacation, nor could they see her on the one scheduled for the 16th, because that specialist needs the results of the previous one. They assigned him new appointments: the first for September 8, and the second for November 11. By then, 10 months will pass without a diagnosis, and consequently without treatment.

Probably the excuse is that doctors are entitled to annual leave and that’s right, they do well to use it. However, this, which is only one in a series of similar cases, is an indicator of non-fulfillment of some allegations about the goals and functions of the institution.

In 2012, the Banking and Insurance Supervisory Authority made a decision establishing that the National Social Security System has a Corporate Governance Code, which states that its “organization and work are based on the principles of solidarity, obligation, universality, fairness, efficiency, subsidiarity and sufficiency”. In the section on ethical standards, it is stated that officers, servers and workers will perform their functions “framed by the principles of legality and ethical values ​​of integrity, responsibility and efficiency, which provide adequate and timely service with quality and warmth”, and other General Provisions says: “that all servers and employees of the institution sign an obligation confirming whether they have read and understood the Corporate Governance Policy and the IESS Code of Ethics and agree to comply with their provisions.”

I will not refer to all the principles and norms mentioned in the documents, but I want to emphasize that the word “efficiency” appears many times, not only in the two paragraphs that I share, and that the fact that I state in the first paragraph is a sample that it is not fulfilled. It could be argued that there are not enough doctors and that, this is known, what is not understood is that the basic principle of the organization is not used, which is the annual vacation calendar that all organized institutions carry out at the beginning of each year, if it exists. it is easy to predict how the problems arising from the absence of the post holder will be solved, and if there are no necessary human resources, at least in this case, the branch will avoid having to attend a meeting that should not have happened. In addition, what was published begs the question: Is this “timely service with quality and warmth”? (OR)