bola In Spain: The Health Minister Must Resign
By The Spain Report | October 7th, 2014
Editorials & Opinion | Healthcare
EDITORIAL—NATIONAL—EBOLA: Spain’s Health Minister Ana Mato is incapable of providing the leadership Spaniards need to deal with the first case of Ebola infection outside West Africa.
The Spanish Health Ministry and official spokespeople at hospitals all over Spain spent weeks over the summer telling The Spain Report that all the Ebola alerts were just scares and that it was extremely unlikely the disease could be transmitted in Spain, given the world-class quality of Spanish hospitals and the outstanding level of training and preparation Spanish healthcare workers had received in Ebola decontamination procedures and patient handling protocols.
There would be absolutely no problem, or risk, from urgently repatriating two Ebola-infected Spanish missionaries from West Africa, at a cost of around €1 million each, so that they could be cared for and die in Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, given the exacting personnel preparations and despite Spanish health workers themselves complaining in August that the hospital’s infectious disease ward—closed months earlier due to Mr. Rajoy’s austerity measures—was being reopened “in a rush, urgently and at top speed” to admit the first priest, Miguel Pajares.
Don’t go writing “Ebola in Spain” headlines, they said, you’ll scare off all the tourists.
Well, now Ebola is in Spain, in the first transmission case outside of Africa, and it didn’t let Spain’s Health Minister Ana Mato in on its plans. At some point during Dr. Manuel García Viejo’s treatment, whatever super-safe Ebola protocols that were really in place to protect Spanish healthcare workers obviously failed, and the disease spread from Dr. García Viejo to infect a 44-year-old married nurse in the Carlos III Hospital who had helped to look after both him and Miguel Pajares.
She was sent on holiday the day after he died. She first reported feeling ill on September 30, but was not admitted to hospital until October 5.
In a hastily arranged press conference following the Health Ministry crisis meeting, Mrs. Mato limited herself to making a few brief introductory remarks confirming what journalists had already confirmed. She then passed the buck to the Director of Public Health, the Director of Primary Care in Madrid, and the other civil servants present. When it came to questions, she did not answer a single one, despite some repeated attempts to redirect them back towards her.
Even thought the nurse has had symptoms since September 30, “we are only now beginning to find out the details of her family situation”, said the director of the hospital.
What was the source of the infection? Which systems or parts of the protocol had failed? Where did the nurse go on holiday? Where was she between September 30, when she first felt unwell, and October 5, when she was admitted to hospital? Why was she only admitted to hospital yesterday? How many other people did she come into contact with? Was the nurse at home or touring the nicest sights in Spain as the disease progressed? Will the Spanish government now urgently revise its policy of repatriating infected missionary workers from Africa?
Spaniards don’t know the answers to any of those questions tonight because their government didn’t tell them, couldn’t tell them, or decided it wasn’t going to tell them. Instead, Mrs. Mato and Spanish Health Ministry representatives fumbled the press conference and mumbled their way through the same platitudes they churned out all summer long, about working hard to take all necessary measures and following the strictest international Ebola protocols.
Mr. Rajoy’s government, from the Prime Minister down, has had ongoing problems with its communications with the press, but Spaniards deserve rapid and precise answers and information about what went wrong at the Carlos III Hospital, what is happening right now in Madrid, where the nurse was and what the Spanish government is doing today to lock down the disease and fix the systemic failures that led to Spain being the first country in the world outside Africa to host a case of Ebola transmission.
The Health Minister is obviously incapable of providing that leadership, in a global context in which health organisations warn the Ebola crisis is going to get exponentially worse over the coming months, and with tourism so vitally important to the Spanish economic recovery. Her management of the Ebola crisis in Spain this summer has been negligent, and her lack of information and answers may now be considered reckless given the new emergency.
Mrs. Mato must resign.
