This Friday, the PP Health Ministers boycotted the meeting with the Ministry of Health in which they had to address, among other things, the delivery of data on the status of breast cancer screening in the different territories. They got up from the table a few minutes after it started.
These same councilors attended yesterday the official lunch and dinner that took place in Zaragoza, where this interterritorial Health event is being held. “The Ministry regrets this gesture of institutional disloyalty that hinders transparency at a time of public distrust, indicate Health sources.
The Interterritorial meeting this Friday did not have the screening crisis on its agenda, but it was going to be addressed during the question and answer session after the PP communities refused to hand over the screening data to the ministry. The Minister of Health, Mónica García, had asked them before the meeting to provide this data and not encourage “distrust” in the health system.
The Health Ministers of the Popular Party have abandoned the meeting of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System due to what they consider a “partisan and sectarian” use by the Government of Spain. In a statement, they state that there is a “unilateral manipulation of the agreements adopted by the Screening Conference in the month of April.”
The PP criticizes that the Ministry “has not yet made the essential tool for data management available to the Autonomous Communities, with the indicators being in the review phase, acting in an interested, partisan manner and against the National Health System itself.” They accuse the Minister of Health, Mónica García, of “imposing her criteria, violating the principles of respect and collaboration that should govern this body.”
Before the start of the meeting, García had claimed the importance of it and the topics that were going to be addressed. He has questioned the refusal of the PP communities to not provide the data: “The PP cannot hide behind whether or not an information system is missing, they have all the tools to be able to refer the data to the ministry to give confidence to the women of this country, to the citizens of this country.”
The PP Health Ministers consider that the Ministry “has tried to obtain political gain from an issue that should be a point of unity and shared pride.” They also criticize that “there is no response” to the country’s health problems and “the institutional disloyalty and the constant interference in regional powers, acting outside the cooperation framework established by the Law.”
In a subsequent press conference, Alejandro Vázquez, Minister of Health of Castilla y León, acted as spokesperson for his colleagues and delved into what was included in the statement. According to Vázquez, the PP communities do not refuse to give the data – “of course we are going to give it, the data has never been hidden” – although the truth is that they have opposed handing it over. Vázquez has said that he hopes that the minister “rethinks” and “if she is concerned about the health of Spaniards, we are willing to continue working.”
The Minister of Health, Mónica García, has harshly criticized the rudeness of the PP Health Ministers in the Interterritorial Council. He has assured that they have “boycotted the transparency and information that they must give to citizens” and has said that, with the attitude of the party, the crisis of confidence in Andalusia “extends to all the communities governed by the PP.
With the absence of the councilors, the points that required agreement could not be debated. García explained that only information issues have been addressed: “They are a series of initiatives or strategies, they are a necessary point to continue working with the communities. Everything that involved an agreement or vote we have had to leave aside.” He assures that issues such as the approval of money for cancer centers, for cancer surveillance and the expansion of neonatal screening, among other issues, have ceased to be discussed.
The minister has criticized that the Health Ministers “have been incapable of taking off the PP cap and entering a meeting with the hat of managers and advisers, they have boycotted their citizens. We cannot accept that the PP continues to say that it is an insult to ask for information” and has assured that they are going to study the legal means to provide “answer and information.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
