The most stable government in Spain, as Isabel Díaz Ayuso usually defines the Executive that heads the Community of Madrid, has been facing the heavy digestion of the coronavirus crisis for almost three years.
There are more than a million infected.
Tens of thousands of deaths.
distressing days.
And a controversial management, full of controversial decisions that the voters rewarded in the elections of May 4, 2021. With the 2023 elections already on the horizon, Ayuso has decided that it is time to relaunch the department that has worn the most since who became president in 2019. Since July, there have been five departures (three general directors, a manager and deputy minister Antonio Zapatero);
eight role changes;
and at least six other appointments.
Due,
The one who was coordinator of the emergency hospital Nurse Isabel Zendal, Fernando Prados, now deputy counselor, gains power;
and the future of counselor Enrique Ruiz-Escudero remains surrounded by unknowns.
The number two of the last electoral list of the PP is an option for the candidacy of the party to the City Council of Pozuelo.
Monday, October 3.
Ruiz-Escudero goes to Zendal to present the results of a study that shows that 90% of Madrid residents maintain immunity against the coronavirus 10 months after being vaccinated against the disease.
There are only three questions.
One of them summarizes how heavy the coronavirus management backpack is, and how long the shadow of the pandemic is.
"Will you read Alberto Reyero's book?" Ruiz-Escudero is asked, referring to
Morirán in an undignified way
(Libros del KO)
,
in which the former Minister of Social Policies with Citizens denounces the passivity of Ayuso's team before the deaths of the elderly in residences during the worst of the health crisis.
"I'm not going to read it," replies, bluntly, the Minister of Health.
More information
Alberto Reyero, former councilor of Madrid: "I want people to be outraged so that the abandonment of residences in the pandemic is not repeated"
It is the second time in a very short time that Ruiz-Escudero has been asked about a book that does not offer a friendly portrait of the management of the coronavirus in Madrid.
Before it was the turn of the one signed by the former Minister of Health, Salvador Illa.
"Madrid was the only challenge to the government's authority in the pandemic," the current leader of the PSC writes in his book, describing a Ruiz-Escudero chained to Ayuso's decisions, and with almost no decision-making capacity.
The two scenes illustrate how difficult it is to open a new time, and linked to the post-covid stage, with the same team that faced the pandemic.
Just as there are housing reforms that are undertaken due to the fatigue of the materials, in the Madrid Ministry of Health there is a substitution process that has to do with exhaustion due to crisis management and the will to open a new stage.
The Government, however, tries to surround the changes with optimism.
"The council, during the pandemic, has been a benchmark," the vice president and government spokesman, Enrique Ossorio, defended last week.
"We want coming out of the pandemic to be a shock, and for our Health to take more steps in improving the service it provides to citizens," he added.
“That is why a series of organizational changes have been made, to make it a more modern organization.”
During the worst of the pandemic, the continuity of Ruiz-Escudero, questioned several times, was the shield that the Executive used to defend the stability of the department, and the correctness of its political controversies, while changes were being made at intermediate levels.
It happened when the general director of Public Health, Yolanda Fuentes, resigned, in disagreement with Ayuso's strategy;
when Carlos Mur, general director of the integrated process, was dismissed in the midst of the controversy over the triage protocols that prevented certain elderly people who were in residences from being treated in hospitals;
or when Antonio Burgueño's return to the Administration barely lasted a breath.
However, the departure
of the covid czar
, as the opposition called Deputy Minister Zapatero for his powers against the pandemic, has made a dent in the Government's arguments.
"Today I finish a hard and difficult stage", he admitted at the time of his departure, acknowledging the wear and tear of managing the crisis, breaking the mirage of the simple renewal of teams;
and culminating, for now, a process of five exits, eight changes of functions;
and at least six other appointments in just three months.
Changes in the Ministry of Health of Madrid
These are the positions that have left the Administration:
Antonio Zapatero, Deputy Minister of Healthcare and Public Health.
Teresa Chavarría Giménez, General Director of Research, Teaching and Documentation.
Jesús Vázquez Castro, General Director of Health Care and Assurance of the Madrid
Health Service.
Pablo Busca, manager of Summa 112.
Paula Gómez-Angulo Amorós, General Director of Humanization and Patient Care.
They have changed functions:
Fernando Prados Roa (twice: Hospitals and Health Infrastructures; Integrated Health Process; and Deputy Minister of Health Care and Public Health).
Pedro Irigoyen Barja (from General Director of Economic-Financial Management and Pharmacy of the Madrid Health Service to Deputy Minister of Economic Management).
Elena Mantilla García (from general director of Health Inspection and Management to general director of Health Inspection,
Management and Strategy)
María Dolores Moreno Molino (from Deputy Minister of Health Humanization to General Director of Humanization and
Patient Care)
María Luz de los Mártires Almingol (from General Director of Information Systems and Health Facilities
of the Madrid Health Service to General Director of Research, Teaching and Innovation)
Antonio López Porto (from secretary general of the Madrid Health Service to technical secretary general of the
Ministry of Health)
Francisco Javier Carmena Lozano (from technical general secretary of the Ministry of Health to general comptroller of the Community).
Other appointments:
Andrés Gómez Blanco as General Director of Sanitary Infrastructures of the Madrid Health Service.
Victoria Buezas as general director of Adaptation and Sanitary Supervision of the Madrid Health Service.
Miguel López-Valverde as general director of Information Systems and Digital Health of the Madrid Health Service.
Joaquín Rubio Agenjo as secretary general of the Madrid Health Service.
Juan José Fernández Ramos, as general director of the Integrated Health Process of the Madrid Health Service with the rank of vice-counselor.
Manuel José Guiote, new manager of summa 112.
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