Cristina Ruiz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, April 4, 2024-02:12

Not even if smoking is going to be prohibited on terraces or in cars. And even less so, what is the implementation schedule, nor the financial contribution that will be allocated to each of the measures included in the Comprehensive Plan for Prevention and Control of Tobaccoism (PIT) that Health wants to give the green light on Friday in the meeting with the regional health advisors.

This means that the consensus appealed by the National Committee for the Prevention of Smoking (CNPT) and the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) seems not to be possible. The Public Health Commission held yesterday was interrupted "abruptly", according to some Autonomous Communities, when the Ministry of Health presented a new formula to approve and carry out the Comprehensive Plan for the Prevention and Control of Smoking (PIT), which caught by surprise. to the regions.

According to the ministry itself, after having incorporated a total of "147 proposals from the autonomous communities to the plan [of the 157 finally presented]", this "will be approved through a cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Health and the autonomies in the meeting that the Interterritorial Council" has scheduled for tomorrow.

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The General Directorate of Public Health of the ministry, led by Pedro Gullón, was in charge of proposing this method which, according to Health, "is a formula contemplated by the Regulation of the Interterritorial Council of the SNS." Specifically, article 14, section 2, which the ministry relies on to carry out the PIT, states that "cooperation agreements to carry out joint health actions will be formalized through agreements of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System."

The autonomous communities, surprised by this initiative, requested time to review the changes made to the plan based on the allegations and Health gave them a period of 24 hours, which ends before noon today, to communicate "whether they adhere or not to the Comprehensive Plan for the Prevention and Control of Smoking,” ministry sources explain.

Reactions of the CCAA: a reticent majority

Elena Andradas, general director of Public Health of the Community of Madrid, expressed her astonishment at "the new procedure proposed by Health: voting on a cooperation agreement to which the autonomous community can adhere by specifying its red lines."

The initiative did not convince the general director of Public Health of Aragon, Nuria Gayán, who also expressed to this medium her concern "about the drift that the Public Health Commission is taking, where there is a precipitation that did not even occur in times of pandemic; not even in times of health emergency had there been such a rush and so few hours to vote on such an important document," he noted.

Regarding the contributions presented by the CCAA, Gayán criticized that the ministry does not say "that those it does not accept are the most important. The correction of a mistake does not have the same value as an allegation that is substantial. Such haste and haste do not respect the importance of a Public Health Commission," said the person responsible in Aragon.

One of the main allegations that most of the autonomies agreed on is the absence of an economic report of the plan. Regarding this, Gayán estimates that, "due to other precedents", Aragón would be provided with "46,000 euros in one year", a figure that "seems totally insufficient to us," he stated. "A plan without financial resources and without an execution schedule seems weak to us." ".

From Galicia, they criticized that "the ministry unilaterally rules out reaching a consensus with the CCAA on the PIT" and that it intends to "vote on a cooperation agreement that does not even appear within the operating procedures of the Commission of Public Health was not even on the agenda of the meeting." Regarding the allegations to the plan presented by this community, the same sources explained that the commission has rejected several "very important" ones. Among them, "the self-regulation of smoke-free spaces (Galicia is a reference in this aspect) and also have confirmed the financing."