Reestablishing the age of retirement, increasing the number of admissions at the Faculty of Medicine and recovering the MIR positions lost in the hospitals of Cangas del Narcea, Arriondas and Mieres. These are, in short, the proposals made by the doctors collective of Asturias and the trade union SIMPA that brings together a large number of physicians working in the Sespa, to address the risk of generational change that comes with the retirement of 515 doctors in the next three years and 1,300 to 2025. Professionals in the region also ask for an improvement in the working conditions of many doctors to make the working offer attractive.

Antonio Matador, Secretary General of the Professional Medical Union of Asturias (SIMPA) shortens much more the periods. "We have been warning about this for a while now. In three or four years, some 1,200 doctors will retire", he warns, "that's a major problem now". In his view, one of the priorities is to revise the Sespa human resources plan to prevent the forced retirement of doctors at the age 65. "It is essential to postpone retirement for one or two years, in some communities it has been postponed to the age of 67 and in others, doctors continue to work without specifying a deadline", the secretary of SIMPA says, who adds the need to recover MIR positions in all Hospitals in the region, including Jarrio, Cangas del Narcea, Arriondas and Mieres. "In a few years there will be a generational change, but in addition, this summer, there will be problems in general medicine where doctors are not available. We will have to use all available resources", Antonio Matador claims, and also maintains, "we´ve been able to ride out the storm" but we now face a real tsunami. "At the level of general medicine and emergency we will have immediate problems" he warns.

The medical union also claims to take advantage of the resources of non-EU professionals who carry out their MIR training in the Principality, and even though they do not fulfill the requirement to be part of the public employment system, they ask for flexibility in the current hiring mechanisms in public administration. Increasing the number of admissions (150) that are fixed per year in the Faculty of Medicine is another claim by the SIMPA. "It's a very low number", Antonio Matador argues about the current numerus clausus in this discipline.

The president of the Professional College of Doctors, Alejandro Braña, shows more prudency when talking about increasing the number of admissions at the University. "Increasing the number of graduates in our Faculty does not solve the problem immediately, from the time you start to train a child until he is a specialist, we need to wait some ten years", he argues. That is why the president of the Professional College of Doctors is in favor of postponing the age of retirement to at least two more years. "We´ve been in a precarious situation in primary and general medicine for years", Braña says. And that replacement, the president of the Professional College of Doctors continues, "is not achieved all of a sudden, but it is necessary that there are people who are interested in coming to work in Asturias, to find it a good place for professional performance". According to Braña´s opinion, one solution would be to provide "underemployed" doctors with a stable job. Expanding the MIR positions to all hospitals, as claimed by the SIMPA, is a decision that depends on the Ministry of Health and the National Commission of Specialties, the president of the Professional College of Doctors said.