For Yamilé Santana Blanco, head of the Population Assistance Department of the Provincial Government of People's Power (GPPP) in Ciego de Ávila, there are three words that define success in assistance to citizens: perseverance, dedication and love.
These terms acquire greater meaning amid the improvement of this task, defined as a priority by the country's top leadership to minimize the social impact of a multidimensional crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the tightening of the US blockade against Cuba.
In the effort to achieve superior quality in assistance to citizens, the province is committed, in the first instance, to increasing the preparation of the cadres and officials of institutions and organizations that make up the Population Assistance System, he explained.
• In this regard, read attention to vulnerable communities is prioritized in Ciego de Ávila
The training carried out in the last two months of 2021 was aimed at clearing the path towards transformations ―understood as agility in procedures, higher quality responses and solutions to proposals as much as possible―.
Although specialists are defined to attend to the activity in different instances, Santana Blanco insists that it is an issue that involves everyone in the workplace, considering that the attention to the people begins at the Reception, where a first image is provided, usually defining.
He added that computerization constitutes another essential moment since it allows grouping information from different sources in a digital platform called Palacio, governed by the Council of Ministers, with facilities for organization, planning and control of work processes.
The new technological tool offers facilities to evaluate trends and determine concentrations of problems, which will indicate to local authorities where to direct efforts and resources to benefit a greater number of people.
This month of March, this automated system was installed in the Provincial Office for Attention to the Population, located in the GPPP, and is in the testing phase. It is expected to extend it to municipal structures very soon, which would constitute another step forward in the digitalization and speed of procedures.
The migration to this work system implies introducing information on the digital platform concerning the more than 400 cases received in the province during the first quarter of the year, a cumbersome task; however, the benefits are recognized.
The improvement of the technological infrastructure contemplates the enabling of emails to facilitate communication and the assignment of mobile telephones with Internet access to some officials, he said.
With the program designed by the Company of Information Technologies for Defense (XETID) the work is humanized and the time dedicated to documentation is reduced, so that it can be used in direct attention to the public, to treat their cases in depth and visit them to better understand the problems, identify others that may affect them and manage solutions on the spot.
The approach of officials to communities and neighborhoods was a practice that spread during the health crisis, given the difficulties for citizens to attend offices. It was possible to systematize it in municipalities such as Baraguá, Bolivia and Majagua.
As part of the refinement, it will be forcefully implemented in all territories. Based on her experience, this public servant confirms that attention to the population cannot be limited to office work, since work in the field is more beneficial and favors decision-making in terms of speeding up the response to social problems.
This achieves greater commitment from the parties involved. In addition, people appreciate it and confirm that their well-being concerns and occupies, as appropriate.