Andalusia disobeyed its own referendum and renamed the Military Hospital with the least voted option

“The Government of Andalusia should not be the one to decide what this hospital will be officially called.

“We have made a decision that is the most reasonable, equitable and democratic to open a referendum so that all health workers in the province of Seville can decide what they want this wonderful new hospital to be called.”

The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, thus announced on February 2, 2022 the launch of a telematic consultation so that the Sevillian professionals of the Andalusian Health Service could choose the new name with which it would be designated. to the renovated Military Hospital of Seville, until then baptized as Vigil de Quiñones.

However, in the end it was the Board that determined the new name of the hospital center.

This is clear from the official results of the referendum, which have been known almost a year after its second phase was launched - on March 7, 2023 -, due to the insistence on knowing them from the family of Lieutenant Rogelio Vigil of Quiñones, one of

.

The current name, Hospital Doctor Muñoz Cariñanos, was the least voted of the four options that SAS members had to vote for, with 16.5% of the votes.

The first two, with 63%, were Rosalía Robles Cerdán and Vigil de Quiñones.

In third position was Miguel de Mañara, with 20.4%.

This is clear from the results that Vigil de Quiñones' family has been able to obtain after claiming the data from the Andalusian administration through the Transparency Portal, after trying, without success, by consulting directly with the SAS.

The Junta de Andalucía, at first, told the family members only why it had decided to discard the names of Muñoz Cariñanos' competitors.

Regarding the third place, Miguel de Mañara, the patron of the Golden Age and founder of the Order of Charity, it was argued that "because there is a charitable institution in Seville linked to the Sevillian nobleman", in reference to the Hospital of Charity.

Regarding one of the first, Rosalía Robles, midwife, founder and president of the Official College of Midwives of Seville, because “due to her status as a woman” and her profession “the department decided to reserve her name to assign it to the future Women's Hospital”, dependent on the Virgen Macarena.

It was not argued why Vigil de Quiñones was dispensed with, but it was explained that “considering the roots in the city of Seville” it was decided to maintain that name for the entire health district of Seville.

Regarding the choice of Muñoz Cariñanos, murdered by ETA in his office in 2000, it was indicated that it was due to “his dual status as a member of the Armed Forces and a specialist doctor.”

Sources from the Ministry of Health have indicated to this newspaper that "the names of the Seville Health District Vigil de Quiñones, the Doctor Muñoz Cariñanos Hospital and the future Rosalía Robles Cerdán Maternal-Children's and Women's Hospital are the result of a set of decisions policies guided by prior, optional and non-binding consultation.”

Moreno, on February 2, 2022, promised that the name would come out of the referendum in which the SAS workers of Seville would participate in a “process with all democratic guarantees”, for which, as he stated, he had hired a company that would carry out security control.

The president of the Board also said that day that the voting rules would be posted so that everyone could know them.

The telematic voting process was activated in March 2022 in two phases, a first in which professionals could make their proposals - 1,600 were received - and a second, which was activated on March 7, 2023, in which workers three days to choose.

The sources consulted justify that the consultation had little participation, 11.68%, corresponding to 3,251 votes out of a census of 27,841 professionals.

For the family of Vigil de Quiñones, as an interlocutor explains to this newspaper, what is evident is that the name change was not really a priority nor was it part of the interest of the SAS professionals, who had no problem with the name of the hospital. .

The interlocutor conveys the respect and affection that Sevillian society has for Vigil de Quiñones and values ​​the career and importance of this doctor, scientist and soldier who discovered the natural antidote to the beriberi disease, which ended the lives of many. of those besieged on the island of Luzon, where the so-called

took refuge in the church of Baler

.

Reasons that merit, according to his descendants, that the Military Hospital bear his name since it was inaugurated on June 27, 1980.

When Moreno presided over the fourth inauguration of the new Military Hospital, recovered by the Government of Andalusia after years of abandonment, he announced its new name and that the health district of Seville would be renamed Vigil de Quiñones.

“It is a fair and double recognition.”