The counselor of Health and Dependency Care, Sara García Espada, has assured that, since her incorporation into the regional Executive, around 40 initiatives have been launched that, in her opinion, are allowing the Extremadura Health Service (SES) to reach its "maximum potential".
According to her explanation, the SES now registers fewer referrals to private healthcare and greater activity in the public network, which would be translating into waiting lists with "fewer patients and less time to be attended to".
García Espada intervened this Thursday in the Plenary of the Assembly, in a statement requested by the Socialist Parliamentary Group, which argues that the management model of the government of María Guardiola is "deteriorating" the SES "to fatten private healthcare".
The Health official began her presentation with the intention of detailing up to 40 measures adopted since 2023 in areas such as public contracting, healthcare infrastructure, technological modernization, personnel incorporation, training, and the digitalization of the Extremadura Health Service. Many of these actions, she said, have focused in these early years on "filling the hole" that, she has denounced, was left by the socialist governments after "36 years of neglect".
However, the development of the debate and the time limitation have prevented her from completing the list, so she has opted to rebut the opposition with concrete examples of services that, she has argued, have improved their functioning.
In particular, she has questioned the "narrative" about the increase in the weight of private healthcare, emphasizing that "we are in the year with the least privatization of the SES", and has provided data that, she has indicated, supports the increase in healthcare activity.
To do this, she compared the week of September 7 to 11, 2026, with that of September 5 to 9, 2022, both with the holiday of September 8. In that period, she pointed out, this year there have been 6,598 outpatient consultations and 209 more surgical interventions than four years ago, when the socialists were in power.
This implies, he has detailed, an increase of 35% in external consultations and 24.7% in surgeries. "Tell me where the story is?", the counselor inquired of the socialist spokesperson, reproaching her for basing her criticisms on messages from patients on social media and in writings sent to her party to justify that, one more week, she is brought to appear in the regional Chamber.
THE VOICE OF THE PATIENTS
The spokesperson for the Socialist Group has read in the chamber testimonies from Extremadurans who denounce a lack of doctors, delays in interventions, diagnostic tests, and consultations, problems in emergencies, and other incidents that, in her opinion, evidence a deterioration of the quality of care.
"These are our reasons," she stated, to request the presence of the counselor and to explain "what is happening" in Extremadura's healthcare, and not to refocus her intervention on "defending herself" from the PSOE, reminding her that she has been "three years in charge of healthcare in Extremadura."
With this appearance, the socialists say they want to "give voice to the citizens" of the region, where, she has assured, private insurance has grown by 30% "because there is a deterioration that is already palpable and measurable in the public healthcare of Extremadura."
A deterioration that they attribute to the implementation of a "healthcare model change" that "does not work" and that, they claim, has caused "an excessive increase in extraordinary activity" and has "increased referrals to private healthcare."
LACK OF PLANNING
The deputy of Unidas por Extremadura José Antonio González Frutos has accused the counselor of showing "absolute indifference to the problems" of regional healthcare and of hiding behind the fact that the previous Executive did it "worse," despite the health barometer placing Extremadurans "fourth from the bottom" in the assessment of primary care.
Beyond the "isolated measures" presented by García Espada, he reproached her for the "lack of capacity to diagnose important problems" and a "lack of planning" that, he said, "borders on the ridiculous."
In this sense, and after reminding him that the increase in healthcare spending is due to the fact that the community has more resources from autonomous financing, he has asked about the implementation of the health law, the mental health plan, and the strategic plans for primary care, emergencies, waiting lists, or the management of human resources, in order to size the necessary staff and prevent "the care overload from jumping from one place to another."
For her part, the Vox deputy María Jesús Salvatierra has emphasized that this debate has been repeated in recent months in the Assembly with the sole purpose, in her view, of the opposition obtaining a headline "to be present by any means." At the same time, she has asked that "they do not kidnap the managers" with continuous requests for appearances that, she said, take away time from performing their functions.
In her opinion, the opposition turns the oversight of the Executive "into a merry-go-round, which goes around but does not advance," so it does not provide "any service" with these initiatives, although they "drag" the rest of the groups to repeatedly debate the same issues.
INCREASE IN STAFF
In the same vein, the PP deputy Margarita Núñez Sánchez has defended that, the more the Extremaduran healthcare is discussed in parliament, "the more the lies of the PSOE will be exposed," to which the government of María Guardiola responds, she said, with data and management.
"The narrative of abandonment, of empty promises is over for you, because while you were dedicated to managing based on headlines and improvised patches, this government is responding with facts, with figures, and with impeccable management," she pointed out, highlighting, among other aspects, the reinforcement of healthcare staff.
"The reality that must be valued is that today Extremadura operates more than ever because it has 1,170 more professionals in the SES, because there are 872 new structural positions, because there are 100 million invested in technology and three times the budget in primary care with 489 works underway," she added.
WILL PAY THE DEBT TO QUIRÓN
During the session, the debt with the Quirón clinic for referrals made under the previous socialist government has been debated again, an issue uncovered last week by the counselor. García Espada has announced that the "first" thing he will do is "to get the 272,000 euros to be able to pay them what you left owed."
He specified that this amount is due to the referral of trauma patients from the area of Don Benito to the Quirón Hospital in Cáceres due to "deficit in the staff, which prevented them from being able to carry out all the surgeries in the area."
"They didn't have staff, they couldn't face the interventions, and then you refer them, but since it exceeds the contract, well to the drawer" and others will come to pay the bill, and "if the people of Extremadura don't find out, better," he reproached the socialists "for their way of proceeding."
In the face of these accusations, the socialist spokesperson recalled that referrals to contracted centers are made following the administrative procedures of the SES itself and defended that there are "control mechanisms" over these actions.
"What you cannot do here is sow doubt and suspicion," she pointed out, urging the counselor that, if she has reservations about any file, to refer it "to the Prosecutor's Office," and invited her to provide a copy of "all payments and all correspondence, not only with Quirón, but with all the companies operating in Extremadura."