The Minister of Health, Manuel Villegas, has just joined this Wednesday the long list of Spanish politicians who cling to their position and refuse to resign even though their conduct is light years away from what is expected of a high public position, and despite the fact that there is a general clamor, even among some of his colleagues in the regional government (the spokesperson included), to assume his responsibility for having skipped the protocol established to be vaccinated against Covid, he and his entire management team.
Villegas’ justification makes water everywhere. He alleges that he was vaccinated, along with hundreds of non-welfare officials from the Ministry and the SMS, in his capacity as a doctor and insists that his action “conforms to the national protocol”, since he is a worker from the health system and the target is «prevent outbreaks in the centers where you work to control the pandemic». But the counselor borders on the truth, since the same protocol to which he refers clearly indicates that in the first phase of the vaccination campaign only includes “health personnel who work with the patient”, and Villegas has not spent a long time consulting or rolling up his sleeves at a hospital emergency door. This cardiologist by profession also says that “there was no desire to hide anything”, but the truth is that from his department It was never publicly reported that the leadership of the Ministry was going to be immunized and the human team that manages the coronavirus pandemic at the highest level. It would have been as simple as turning vaccination into a act to support the campaign to dispel any doubts about security of the Pfizer therapeutic combination, but perhaps he did not dare in case someone blamed him for skipping the protocol, as it has finally happened.
In his appearance at the Regional Assembly, where he did not receive the face-to-face support of the president of the Community, Fernando López Miras, or any councilor of the PP, Villegas emphasized that he was vaccinated because he is a “doctor” and, therefore, belongs to ” group 3 “, that of” other workers in health and social health centers. ” An argument this that does not hold: Villegas is now a politician, not a cardiologist, holds a political position (nothing less than adviser), charges as a politician (70,408.48 euros gross per year, according to the Community Transparency Portal), he has an official car as a politician and sits in the noble office of the Health headquarters, in Ronda Levante.
Villegas’s risk of catching Covid It is not greater than the thousands and thousands of Murcians who go to work every day and they expose themselves to the risk of contracting the virus, for example the teachers of schools and institutes, without going any further. The difference is that for the latter there is not even an approximate date of vaccination set, and I am sure they are eager to know when their turn will come. Of the people over 80 years of age and of the great dependents, we better not even talk.
Whether consciously or by miscalculation, the counselor has not risen to the occasion. He only had to say ‘no’ when one of his collaborators asked him to be vaccinated like the rest of the non-healthcare officials of the Ministry and the Murcian Health Service. It’s more, it should have refused and also strictly prohibit non-care service workers from doing so. That was his responsibility. The same responsibility that he, his team and the regional government as a whole claim from citizens every time they appear publicly to account for the evolution of the pandemic. Villegas’ credit is exhausted. Nothing will be the same when it addresses citizens to give them the umpteenth slap on the wrist for not complying with the rules to bend the coronavirus. President López Miras has the last word.
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