Juan Carlos Unzúe, ABC Salud 2024 award: «The ALS law should be published in the BOE tomorrow. “We don’t have time left”

Unzúe, who together with Sabaté received the ABC Salud award from the Minister of Health, Fátima Matute, assured in her thank-you speech that today has once again been “a very important day for ALS patients.” «I want to thank the Senate for approving the ALS law as Congress did a few days ago. We only need the most important thing, that it be published in the BOE. To those who have that job, please do it tomorrow. Don’t wait until Monday. If we ALS patients don’t have something to spare, it’s time.«, asked the former soccer player. And it has encouraged us all to help each other a little more. »I realized from a very young age that you don’t go anywhere alone. First you need family. Second, when I was a goalkeeper, I needed my teammates. When I was a coach, I needed my players. I am certain that we need each other,” he concluded his speech.

For his part, Jordi Sabaté was very excited to receive “this prestigious award.” «I want to thank the best newspaper in Spain, which is ABC, for granting me this recognition for my fight against ALS. Since I started activism for the right to life of patients, from ABC you have always helped me make ALS visible,” he noted. He also thanked the Congress and the Senate for approving the ALS law, and all the people and organizations: «Long live all the people present here, long live the ABC and long live life. I love you.”

“The ALS law was impossible and here it is, especially because of the impressive work of some people like them,” said the director of ABC, Julián Quirós, the first to speak to congratulate the winners. “These awards are a source of pride for the newspaper,” he stated.

This year’s awards, which have been conducted with a great sense of humor by the family doctor, writer, popularizer and stand-up comedian Fernando Fabianihave also recognized the work of the researcher Guadalupe Sabiowhich from the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), first, and now at the National Center for Oncology Research (CNIO), is dedicated to unraveling the molecular mechanisms through which obesity contributes to the development of chronic diseases as prevalent as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

The scientist thanked the jury of the ABC Salud awards, from whose president, Ana Pastor, she received the award, for “thinking about basic research as the key and driving force to understand a disease and to be able to combat it and improve the lives of patients. “Basic research is essential in the initiation of medicines.” Sabio wanted to thank the entire CNIO community and everyone who is behind the researchers. «It is a team that makes you feel calm every day. To do quality science we need peace of mind. Science needs to be done in a calm way,” he warned.

Sabio wanted to dedicate the award to his family and also to the laboratory where he works. «This award is yours because we are a team. I am lucky to work with a great team that makes me happy every day,” said the researcher, who asked: “more investments in basic science«.

The award for the most innovative drug went to UGRSKIN, the first artificial human skin developed in Spain by the University of Granada, for the treatment of major burns. The Spanish Medicines Agency has recently approved its use as an advanced therapy drug after years of basic research. «A medicine is always a reason and vehicle for hope. Unamuno said to believe is to create. And in these years we have been able to create artificial corneas, an artificial palate that is already in clinical trials, and artificial skin approved by the Medicines Agency as the first consolidated tissue-engineered drug approved in Spain“said Antonio Muñoz Campos, director of the Tissue Engineering Group at the UGR, after receiving the award.

‘Clinical Command Center’ of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital of Barcelona has received the award for Health Technology. Luis Mayero, advisor to Asisa and provincial delegate in Madrid, was in charge of presenting the award to Rodrigo Martínez, director of communication of the San Juan de Dios Hospital Order. This technological initiative allows children with complex chronic diseases to be remotely monitored in real time without them having to leave their home. “This way they and their families can spend more time at home and improve their quality of life,” he said.

The ABC Salud award for the Nursing initiative has been won by the Salamanca University Care Complexwith a central role of specialist nurses, which has allowed the complex CAR-T cell therapy to be brought to the home of cancer patients. Rosario Perona, deputy general director of Cellular Therapy and Regenerative Medicine at the ISCIII, presented the award to Ángela Rodríguez, head of the hospital’s Hematology Unit.

The General Council of Pharmacists and its project Farmahelp They have been awarded as the best Pharmacy initiative. The president of the pharmacists, Jesús Aguilar, has received the award from the general director of Farmaindustria, Javier Urzaiz. “Thank you for recognizing the social commitment of the pharmacist through this tool to help patients find their medication at these times when we often have serious problems,” Aguilar noted.

Providing temporary and free accommodation to the relatives of patients admitted to the ICU and neonatal units of public hospitals in Madrid, displaced from other communities that do not have the possibility of accommodation, is the work of the Avintia Foundationwhich has received the ABC Salud award for the Health Foundation. «I accept the award on behalf of all those families we have hosted, more than 200 and the project is growing. I can only thank the Community of Madrid, the Ministry of Health that has given us support from the first moment, all the social workers in the hospitals and all those who without knowing it make us here today,” thanked Carmen Varela, president and director of the Avintia Foundation.

The ABC Salud award to the private hospital has recognized the excellence of a center that has been a reference in ophthalmology for 135 years and five generations: Fernández-Vega Ophthalmological Institute. Tomás Cobo, president of the General Council of Official Medical Associations, presented the award to Luis Fernández Vega, medical director of the center. “This recognition fills the more than 200 professionals of the institute with satisfaction and is a stimulus to progress, which allows us to care for more than 100,000 patients each year and perform 10,000 surgeries,” he highlighted in his speech.

The jury has awarded the career of the Major burns unit at the Getafe Hospital in Madridfor being a national and European reference in the treatment of critically ill adult patients. The editor-in-chief of Society and the ABC Salud supplement, Nuria Ramírez de Castro, has presented the award to the Public Hospital to doctors José Ángel Lorente, head of the Intensive Medicine Service of the Getafe Hospital; José Luis Fernández Cañamaque, head of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Section and head of the Major Burns Unit at the University Hospital of Getafe; Claudia Ana Dobre and Ana Isabel Sainz, nursing supervisors of the Major Burns Unit and ICU. «This award is an important boost to continue maintaining and increasing the enthusiasm and dedication required by our complex task. We treat critically ill patients with such close and effective coordination, difficult to find in other organizations. We remain excited to have the best results with these patients,” explained Dr. Lorente. For his part, Dr. Fernández Cañamaque has assured that “every day a work that could be routine, stressful and exhausting becomes a passion, a continuous motivation that leads us to treat patients better every day.”