The mayor of Carcabuey, Juan Miguel Sánchez, and the provincial coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Sebastián Pérez, held a press conference this Wednesday before starting a lockdown at the municipality’s medical office, as a protest against the public health situation in the town and the lack of responses from the Andalusian PP government.
Juan Miguel Sánchez, mayor of Carcabuey, has shown his deep gratitude to everyone present at the rally: “As mayor and as a Carcabulense, my hair stands on end to see so many people gathered here today to defend something as important as it is. our public health.”
In his speech, he highlighted the presence of representatives of the Carcabuey City Council, other neighboring municipalities such as Almedinilla, Castil de Campos, and members of various platforms in defense of public health in the entire region, together with groups such as the Marea Blanca de Priego.
The mayor has demanded what he considers basic and fair demands for the citizens of Carcabuey: the return of two afternoons of Primary Care, allowing access to the doctor for those who cannot go in the morning, the replacement of the second doctor that the delegation promised of Health and which, to this day, still does not materialize, and the establishment of the pediatric service once a week, which the municipality has not had for more than seven years.
“We are not asking for anything extraordinary,” Sánchez stressed. “We want what any other town has: decent and accessible healthcare for all. “They have promised us improvements that they have not delivered, and that is not acceptable.”
For his part, Sebastián Pérez, provincial coordinator of Izquierda Unida, has congratulated the residents of Carcabuey for their commitment to defending their health center. “This is an example of how a people becomes aware to defend what is theirs, because they see not only health, but also education and dependency in danger.”
Pérez has denounced the lack of action on the part of the Health delegate, María Jesús Botella, whom he has accused of not keeping her promises and of issuing threats through videos instead of solving public health problems in the town. Pérez has been forceful in pointing out the background of the health crisis in Andalusia: “The Andalusian government of the Popular Party has a plan for health, and that is to privatize and dismantle it. They do not believe in public health because it is not important to them; They have private hospitals, but most people don’t. “If we lose public health, we lose the future.”
The provincial coordinator called for mobilization, especially to the younger generations, insisting that “if people organize and fight, they have lost the battle, in reference to the Andalusian PP government.” The confinement in the Carcabuey medical office represents, according to both leaders, a turning point in the fight to defend public health in the town and in Andalusia. “This confinement is a before and after,” said Pérez, encouraging citizens to continue organizing and mobilizing to protect a fundamental right such as public health.
Health affirms that health care is guaranteed with doctors from Priego
For her part, the delegate of Health and Consumption of the Junta de Andalucía in Córdoba, María Jesús Botella, before the concentration and confinement in the Carcabuey (Córdoba) office initiated this Wednesday by the mayor of the municipality, Juan Miguel Sánchez (IU) , and his government team, to demand doctors, has stressed that “health care is being guaranteed through the continuities of care provided by the doctors of Priego de Córdoba” in said office in Carcabuey.
In this sense and in statements to Europa PressBotella has acknowledged that, “indeed, we have a lack of doctors in Carcabuey, which we hope can be resolved as soon as possible,” taking into account that “the office’s staff consists of two family doctors,” but “currently we have one and, furthermore, this one has his working day reduced by 50%”, while “the other doctor who was previously there” has recently taken part in a “transfer competition and has left”.
Botella has explained that, “in such circumstances, this has been resolved with the doctors of the support device of the Basic Zone of Priego, to which Carcabuey’s office belongs”, however, what happens is that it is “the Basic of Priego has also lost these two doctors from the support device, who are the ones who provide reinforcements and cover the departures of the guards, etc. ”
Consequently, now “the lack of doctors that we have in Carcabuey” is being covered “with continuities of care from the doctors of Priego”, which involve “four hours of work that are carried out in the afternoon voluntarily by the doctor and that, logically, since it is specifically reattributed.”
This is the measure that is being applied while “an attempt is being made to resolve as soon as possible” the situation of lack of doctors in Carcabuey, Botella stated that, “what we can say is that the residents of Carcabuey are being cared for,” until the point that, “if we compare the month of September of this year with the month of September of last year, it turns out that the number of queries answered has even been higher” in 2024, since “1,052 queries were answered, and in the In the month of September 2023, 1,046 were attended to,” while “in the month of October there is a slight drop in consultations, around 24%.”
For this reason, “despite the fact that the situation of lack of doctors is real, health care is being guaranteed through the continuities of care provided by Priego doctors,” adding Botella, in relation to the concentration and confinement “that are promoting from the Carcabuey City Council and, rather, from Izquierda Unida”, the Health delegate has said that she does not agree with this measure.
In this regard, Botella has said that he can “understand the City Council’s concern and I share it and, as always,” he offers “an outstretched hand to seek solutions, but what I do not share are the forms, honestly. “I do not agree with gatherings at the doors of offices and, of course, I cannot agree with confinement in an office.”
In the opinion of the Health delegate, “it is a way of vindicating and a way of demanding that I, sincerely, do not share,” so that, although she has said she respects the mayor of Carcabuey, Botella disagrees with “the formula that “They have searched to try to improve health care in Carcabuey.”