Direct. Last minute on the coronavirus
Health: Spain exceeds the first month of vaccination with ups and downs in the middle of a runaway pandemic
December 22th.
Before the arrival of the vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the Extremadura Health Service (SES) published a protocol for the application of the doses that prioritized "public health personnel in the direct management of the pandemic based on their risk of exposure ".
January 18th.
Said protocol in Extremadura is modified to include "public health personnel working in the management of the pandemic", eliminating the term "direct" and also the phrase "based on their risk of exposure".
The change is expressly made in section 2 of said document, previously titled 'First-line health-social-health personnel', which is now updated as simply 'First-line personnel'.
What happened between the two dates for the change of priorities?
That appeared throughout Spain -also in Extremadura- multiple cases of politicians and senior health officials who had skipped the regulations to vaccinate themselves first when the strategy approved by the Ministry of Health, in the first phase of vaccination that has not yet ended , included residents and staff of senior centers;
health personnel on the front line against the pandemic and social health personnel;
and large non-institutionalized dependents.
Legal coverage
As a result of this change, health personnel who are in direct contact with people at risk are equated with the managers of the pandemic.
As a result, the door is thus legally opened for the entire executive organization that governs Health in Extremadura - the senior officials of the SES, including the Health Minister himself, José María Vergeles - to be vaccinated at any time from of that day January 18 without it could have criminal or political consequences, despite the lack of dose for the population at risk that exists today.
In fact, in the accusation letter before the Public Prosecutor's Office prepared by the PSOE in the Murcia region against the senior officials (including the Minister of Health who subsequently resigned), he referred to the fact that the Ministry of Health "arbitrarily skipped a unfair and rude way the vaccination protocol established by the Ministry "without knowing" any type of legal or technical spring in which this decision has been protected.
In Extremadura, that legal coverage has already been found with this modification.
Sources from the Ministry of Health have explained to EL MUNDO that "we have only adapted the modification of the protocol sent by the Ministry, nothing more, and which includes front-line personnel, not only in Extremadura but everywhere, and that it expands in addition to ambulance personnel ... Our basis is that of the national protocol that has been updated, "they warn.
The basis of the national plan was approved on December 18, and update 2 was approved on January 22, four days after Extremadura made the change.
Montserrat Rincón, who has resigned from the position of territorial director of Badajoz from SEPAD.EM
The national document states that "people in the first stage must continue to be vaccinated: residents and health and social-health personnel who work in nursing homes for the elderly and care for large dependents, first-line personnel in the health and social-health field, other personnel health and social health and people considered large dependents who are not institutionalized ".
In addition, he adds that within the group of other health and social health personnel "the hospital and Primary Care field not considered first-line will be prioritized. Dentistry, dental hygiene and other health personnel who care for patients without a mask will also be vaccinated. for more than 15 minutes. "
In other words, it makes no reference to those who work "in the management of the pandemic", as Extremadura has included.
The regional deputy of the PP of Extremadura, Luis Alfonso Hernández Carrón, has requested today the "sudden resignation" of the Minister of Health, José María Vergeles, due to the "scandal" of the change in the vaccination protocol.
Hidden plan
This variation in the protocol of action on the Extremadura vaccination has not been made public by the Junta de Extremadura and has been revealed today by the Cope chain, hours after the resignation of a high position of Health in Extremadura for skipping the vaccination order.
Montserrat Rincón, territorial director of Badajoz of the SEPAD (body responsible for the dependency and residence of the elderly) skipped the protocol when getting vaccinated on January 4.
Rincón - who was not part of any risk group - resigned two weeks ago, but was not officially confirmed until last night.
During this interval, "personal matters" were always officially alluded to for his departure.
The also former socialist councilor in the Badajoz City Council had been vaccinated in a senior center that has 180 seats and took advantage of the day that the health workers went to the senior center to do so.
First resignation
With the departure of the head of SEPAD, the only resignation due to this controversy in Extremadura has occurred so far, although other cases have also transpired, such as the mayor of Valverde del Fresno (Cáceres), Amalio Robledo (26 years old), and the the PSOE councilor in Plasencia and director of the Social Health Center, Soraya Cobos, who was vaccinated in another town (Valdeobispo) five days before, claiming that if not "the dose was lost."
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Know more
Estremadura
PSOE
Murcia
PP
Badajoz
Cáceres
Spain
Coronavirus
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Covid-19Clamor of the autonomous communities so that Salvador Illa comes out of his apathy before the third wave of the pandemic
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