The Secretary General of Health, Javier Padilla, has defended that the Ministry of Health did not act late in Ceuta after the massive arrival of immigrants through the border with Morocco, recalling that his department already manages healthcare assistance in the two autonomous cities through INGESA.
"It's not that we arrived late or early --he emphasized in statements to LaSexta, reported by Europa Press--. We were already there because we have the competence for providing healthcare assistance."
He detailed that the presence and care devices have been "intensified." "All mechanisms were put in place, circuits were made independent, reinforcements were put in that first moment in 061 and subsequently at the different points from assistance," he indicated.
In an initial phase, the staff was reinforced with 90 healthcare professionals with a horizon until August 31, although Padilla has advanced that the new contracts will have a duration of 3 months.
"In the case of doctors, one or two doctors have been added for each shift in emergencies, but especially also in the different devices, both in Tarajal, but very specifically in the device of the Health Center of Otero." According to him, specific teams were organized to attend to migrant people in "differentiated circuits with respect to the rest of the population."
Questioned about the collapse reported by doctors and nurses, Padilla admitted a "situation of tension," although he emphasized that "it has been changing very notably."
In this line, he pointed out that "yesterday 375 assistances were provided, two-thirds more or less of them in Primary Care; two specific devices that are set up with differentiated circuits in the Health Center of Tarajal and the Health Center of Otero, in addition to emergency services of primary care, and about one-third approximately in the University Hospital of Ceuta."
"An increase of 70 daily assistances in total at the Hospital of Ceuta, which includes a very important part of assistances that are from the population of young patients, who mainly need nursing care, wounds, dressings, etc., etc., but of the total 70 extra, that with the reinforcements that have already been provided," he explained.
Padilla has highlighted the coordination of the health system of INGESA with the different resources deployed in Loma Margarita, Loma Colmenar, or the Hípica embankment, as well as the usual collaboration with CETI, Red Cross, and Doctors of the World.
In this way, the Secretary of State has conveyed his "total and absolute gratitude and recognition and legitimization" to the professionals working in the autonomous city, "and at the same time, to convey to the Ceuta population that they can go to health services without any problem. Not a single appointment, test, or surgery has been canceled throughout Ceuta since this crisis situation began, something that has been achieved thanks to the strength of the Ceuta health system."
Regarding the announced vaccination campaign, following the agreement between Health and the autonomous communities to send 45,000 doses to Ceuta, Padilla has indicated that its start is expected next week "if there are no logistical problems." For this, personnel from the vaccine area of the Ministry of Health traveled to the city yesterday to organize the strategy.
However, he emphasized that "no cases of vaccine-preventable diseases have been detected in all these days in these people, that is, it is not that vaccination is being done to stop outbreak situations, vaccination is being done precisely to prevent those outbreak situations from occurring in a very young population with new vaccination levels that may not be optimal."