The distribution of vaccines among the communities in Spain brought a strong controversy this Thursday, after the decision that Madrid made with its first-line health personnel: in the absence of doses against the coronavirus, the local government decided to stop vaccinating doctors and nurses to focus solely on nursing homes.
This was stated by the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, during his appearance before the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly, where he accused the “discrimination” and “wrongdoing” of the national Ministry of Health of this situation. According to the official, they made the region “run out of vaccines for newly vaccinated people,” reports the EFE news agency.
“What does this discrimination translate into? In which Madrid has already run out of vaccines for new vaccinated“He said. And he added:” I am very sorry to have to say this, but Madrid does not have a dose to vaccinate more first-line health professionals. “
In this sense, he indicated that they were “forced to suspend the vaccination provisions of the hospitals”, to emphasize that “this is the tremendous damage that the wrongdoing of the Ministry of Health has caused.”
The conflict between Madrid and the Pedro Sánchez government was unleashed when the Nation decided to distribute the vaccines to the Communities based on the vaccination rate they had been in until then, since Pfizer has production problems that led to smaller shipments to each country.
Madrid, until this Wednesday, had only administered 73% of the 176,615 doses it received from the State. And only 812 people had completed the two-dose schedule.
Spokespersons for the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso had assured that the vaccination rate in Madrid was lower than in the rest of the communities because they had saved half the vaccines to be able to comply with the second dose, 21 days after the first.
Escudero, Madrid Health Minister, also assured that they have stock to continue vaccinating in homes for the elderly and centers for the disabled, and give them the second dose. According to the planned planning, the vaccination of this group, indicated as the priority over health workers, will be completed in the first fortnight of February.
For their part, front-line health personnel in the public and private spheres will have to wait for new vaccines to arrive.
While Spain added a new daily record of covid-19 infections on Wednesday, with 41,576 new positive cases, the vaccination campaign was caught in the eye of the storm due to the “improvisation” of the Government and the Communities.
In Murcia, although the priority was given to nursing homes and health workers,About 400 political officials were vaccinated, among them the Minister of Health of Murcia, who had to resign from his position.
The justification they gave was that there are differences between the regions on the definition of first-line professionals in the face of covid, as well as the absence of protocols on what to do when there are too many vaccines. And that is why they were vaccinated without being touched.
Doctors and nurses pointed out in this regard that the lack of protocols to know what to do with the leftover doses, which expire after six hours, causes that some end up in the garbage.
Given this, the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, replied that “there are no excess doses. There are no doses. Adequate planning must be done.”
AFG
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