The Ministry of Health has summoned the autonomous communities this Monday, August 24, to an extraordinary meeting to specify the supply of vaccines intended for the thousands of immigrants who remain in an irregular situation in Ceuta, after the massive jump from Morocco on July 30, in which about 80,000 people intervened.
As noted by the Minister of Health, Mónica García, on the social network X this Sunday, the Public Health Commission will meet tomorrow "in continuity with the meeting of the vaccine working group held last week" with the aim of "facilitating the donation of vaccines to the City of Ceuta while the city government acquires more doses in the exercise of its competencies."
The meeting, scheduled for 12:00 hours and which will take place via videoconference, will have a single item on the agenda: "Solidarity mechanism for vaccines in relation to the situation in Ceuta." Among the most requested vaccines are the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, the chickenpox vaccine, the polio vaccine, as well as the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines.
Visit of a Health delegation to Ceuta
At the same time, a delegation from the Ministry of Health, led by the Secretary of State for Health and president of the National Institute of Health Management (Ingesa), Javier Padilla, will travel next week to Ceuta to analyze on the ground the impact of the current migration crisis on the University Hospital and on the Primary Care devices of the autonomous city.
According to sources from the Executive indicated to Europa Press, the delegation will also include technicians and several political officials from the Ministry, which holds health competence in the autonomous city.
Padilla is expected to stay several days in Ceuta during this mission, which will occur eight days after the trip made by the Minister of Health, Mónica García, who will appear on Thursday in committee in Congress, in an extraordinary session, to report on her actions regarding this crisis.
That trip of the minister to Ceuta generated strong controversy, as after returning to Madrid, she questioned the actions of the local Government by stating that it was not "sufficiently agile" in enabling spaces to accommodate the newly arrived immigrants. She also labeled the warnings about a possible overcost or collapse of the Ceuta public health system as "xenophobia."
The president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas (PP), replied the next day to the minister reminding that "no one can give lessons to Ceuta on solidarity." Furthermore, he described García's behavior as "absolutely incorrect" and accused her of "trying to offload and evade responsibility by blaming the regional government."