The delegate of the Government in the Region of Murcia and leader of the PSRM, José Vélez, appeared this Tuesday at a press conference to attack the Government of the Autonomous Community, which he accused of “inaction and irresponsibility” during the management of the pandemic and , specifically, during the sixth wave. «We are experiencing the sixth wave in the middle of the Christmas holidays and far from having put the appropriate measures, we have seen that not only have they not reinforced public health with the funds sent by the Government of Spain to the Community but, rather, quite the opposite ».
Vélez wonders “what has the regional Executive done with the more than 800 million from the Covid Fund”. Thus, he demanded to know where that money is, because “people have to know where it is and why people are not being treated as they deserve.” In this sense, he recalled that the funds sent by the Government of Spain “have exceeded 500 million euros for Health.” Despite this, he regretted that “we find ourselves with a regional Executive who dedicates all his time to confront the Government of Spain.”
In addition, he believes that the Murcian Executive “tries to divert attention and blame the State Security Forces and Bodies and the local police for the incompetence of the regional government itself and its mismanagement.” We are before a Murcian Executive “irresponsible, that does not manage and that, when it does, it is always in its own partisan interest and, even, personal,” he reproached. In his opinion, the PP “is more concerned with its electoral issues and its internal affairs than with correctly managing the pandemic and the Region.”
In this sense, Vélez defended that, when these dates arrive, the troops of the State Security Forces and Corps “are reinforced to be able to attend to all the needs that occur.” He clarified that this has been done “throughout this pandemic.” When asked about the Army troops requested by the regional government to reinforce the tracking tasks, Vélez recalled that the Government of Spain “has always made it clear that it would provide the Army troops that were necessary to collaborate with the communities.”
However, he considered that “it is sad to say that in the Region of Murcia the people who were working on this concept disappeared and it was never known again.” And now “they say that they are going to hire, precisely, a tiny part of the staff that has already been fired,” according to Vélez. “A Community that fires its professionals then demands the Government of Spain to send the Army, and now it has been saying that it is going to hire a number of professionals to do that, when we know that they are not even half of those who fired” said the leader of the PSRM, who believes that “they are laughing at the people.”
Immigrants
He also accused the regional government of leaving 14 immigrants “free” who arrived on the shores of the Community in recent days and who have been close contact with a positive case of Covid traveling in the same boat. Vélez regretted that the Ministry of Health “did not decree the quarantine order for these 14 people in the 72 hours established by law,” and neither “has it offered them a housing solution, as stated in the action protocol for immigrants that arrive by boat ».
Specifically, he pointed out that this is included in the action protocol for possible imported cases of Covid-19 in the context of the phenomenon of irregular immigration, signed on July 25, 2020. Thus, he pointed out that this protocol establishes “isolation and quarantine in groups in which there has been a confirmed case ».
“If a positive case of Covid-19 is detected in the group, it will be necessary to proceed to strict isolation of the case, as established in the strategy for early detection, surveillance and control of Covid-19”, as stated by Vélez, who He pointed out that, according to the protocol, this isolation will be carried out “in a hospital center or in the devices provided by the competent health authority.”
Thus, the rest of the group members “will be considered close contacts and should preferably quarantine individually or in groups that are as small as possible to avoid having to prolong the quarantine in the event of successive detection of cases between the contacts.”
Similarly, Vélez recalled that the protocol establishes that isolation “will be carried out in the devices provided by the competent health authority.” “It goes without saying, as you all know, that the competent health authority is the regional government through the Ministry of Health,” according to the secretary general of the PSRM.
In both cases, according to the protocol, «an active surveillance of possible symptoms of Covid-19 will be established by the Public Health authorities, which must guarantee compliance with it, providing the appropriate spaces for it and determining the appropriate spaces for this and determining the urgent and necessary measures for public health. Given the “lack of management” by the Ministry of Health, Vélez stressed that the law “requires the release” of these 14 people. He recalled that, during the last week, 260 immigrants have reached the coasts of the Region. “The Government of Spain has dealt with 245 of them, which have been referred to the reception program of the Secretary of State for Migration,” according to Vélez. In addition, a positive case is in the hospital referred by Public Health. For the remaining 14 people, Vélez pointed out that the only applicable measure is the “housing solution that the Ministry has to put in order to keep quarantine.”
However, he criticized that, in this case, the Ministry “has avoided fulfilling its responsibilities” and “has not wanted to comply with the action protocol” despite the fact that “it is fulfilled in Valencia, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and even in Andalusia, which is governed by the PP. All this, he adds, after more than a year in which “they have taken charge” of these cases. For this, the Ministry of Health has been based “on a sentence that, firstly, is not firm and, moreover, deals with a concrete and specific chaos”, according to Vélez. “Can you imagine that the municipalities did not comply with the orders of the regional government with respect to the Covid?” Velez wondered, who pointed out that the mayors of the region “are much more responsible and more loyal than the regional government of the PP and the turncoats ».
Health responds
The Ministry of Health, for its part, assured this Tuesday that it had notified the Government Delegation of a resolution indicating the need to quarantine these people. «The positive case is in an SMS hospital center. The competence of them to quarantine, as well as to enable public or private accommodation to those who are close contacts, belongs to the Government Delegation, “sources from the Ministry say to THE TRUTH. This was established on October 21, 2021 in a Judgment of the Contentious Administrative Court number 4 of Murcia, which dismissed the appeal filed by the Government Delegation in Murcia and corroborates its obligation to provide public or private accommodation for irregular immigrants to pass the mandatory quarantine period in those cases in which they are considered close contacts. The judgment, which is not final, as Vélez recalled, “indicates that the State’s jurisdiction extends to their custody regardless of the health situation in which they are found and, by extension, must guarantee the isolation of those who are in such custody, a mandatory quarantine is imposed on them for health reasons, which must be sought and monitored, as it is a state competence “, recall sources from Health.
Therefore, “it is irresponsible to look the other way and ignore what the Justice dictates, in addition to the fact that with this attitude they put the health of Murcia at risk. It is the obligation of the Government Delegation to ensure that these people comply with their quarantine “, settle the same sources.
“Immense pain” due to the situation of nursing homes
José Vélez also regretted that the Department of Women, Equality, LGTBI, Families and Social Policy “once again neglects nursing homes”, something that “hurts him immensely.” “It hurts us because we would have to pamper our elders like no one else and they are leaving them in any way in the residences and the Ministry does not act as it should,” he said.
He recalled that the residences already registered 12 active outbreaks of Covid, but the counselor Isabel Franco “has been shirking her responsibility for too long” while the professionals in these centers “continue to be the worst paid and are leaving their skin to give the best service to the residents’.
That is why he believes that these workers, along with users, “are the main victims of the chaotic management of one of the autonomous governments that invests the least in Social Policy.”
SITUATION OF THE RESIDENCES
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