The Minister of Health, Mónica García, defended this Friday that both the central government and her department have increased the volume of transfers to the autonomous communities in recent years, after the health ministers of Castilla y León, Alejandro Vázquez, and the Community of Madrid, Fátima Matute, demanded explanations about these figures.
After the plenary session of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS), Vázquez urged the head of Health to clarify "where the 300 billion euros are and how those 300 billion euros that the Government says it has distributed to the autonomous communities have been distributed," funds with which, according to García, she reproaches the autonomous communities for not allocating them to reinforce the conditions of the health system.
In her response, the minister pointed out at a press conference that, "on the same Treasury page," it can be verified that a total of 222 billion in direct transfers has been provided to the autonomous communities, to which 80 billion from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and another 3.7 billion channeled specifically from the Ministry of Health are added.
"Therefore, an effort has been made so that, since before the pandemic, the transfers made directly from the Ministry of Health to the autonomous communities have multiplied by 10," she stressed.
In this regard, García maintained that it is "false" that the autonomous communities lack economic resources. "One of two, either they have not spoken with their finance ministers or they have not spoken with their presidents. Because if you have 45 percent more budget than you had in 2018 and the budget for Health has increased by 20 percent, the health budget has gone somewhere," she indicated.
"If you have not adapted the working conditions or the increase in remuneration to that transfer, then perhaps it has gone to Quirón or perhaps it has gone to remove taxes from the richest," she added, finally remarking that the specific use of funding is conditioned by the "political priority" set by each autonomous community.