Date Published: 21/01/2021
ARCHIVED - Murcian regional health minister resigns
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The minister resigned after admitting he had vaccinated 400 health staff including himself, who were not on the priorities list
The regional health minister of the Murcia region resigned last night after regional media La Verdad revealed that the minister himself and over 400 staff of the main Murcian Health Service headquarters, had all been vaccinated against covid ahead of frontline workers, thus breaching the guidelines established by the national Ministry of Health prioritising the order in which vaccinations would be administered.
The Minister had refused to resign during the morning after speaking at the regional assembly, but by the evening calls for him to go had grown too numerous to be ignored and by late afternoon he resigned, saying, “ I would have liked to continue until the pandemic was over, but with this much noise going on, it’s impossible,” maintaining that his action, “had not been understood by part of the population”.
Although he has been an exemplary minister for the last three years, the decision to vaccinate office staff before frontline workers is widely viewed as a serious error in judgement and with public feelings so high about the lack of vaccinations available at the moment and frustration about how long some people will have to wait before being vaccinated, the regional president had no option other than to accept his resignation.
This has been a toxic topic over the last few days, with several Mayors and high ranking officials in different areas of the country accepting vaccinations. The other high profile vaccination of a regional health minister in the news on Thursday was the equivalent of Sr. Villegas in Ceutí who was also vaccinated. He, however, refuses to resign.
There has also been considerable noise in the media about the Mayoress of Molina de Segura, who has also been vaccinated, but she defends her position as being "a high-risk cancer patient with a high social exposure", who was called for her vaccination by her local health service and not because of her public position. The PP, Podemos and Ciudadanos have all called for her resignation.
Sr. Villegas maintains that it is “difficult to know who is essential in a health environment,“ and has defended his decision to vaccinate office personnel who have high levels of exposure to those working directly in the front line and whose service is essential in the fight against the pandemic, but this debate about whether those in important positions such as the prime minister, regional governments and those working directly in the health service combating the pandemic, but not directly in hospitals are as important as elderly residents in carehomes who will not be spreading the virus to others will continue until larger supplies of the vaccine come online and are available to a larger group of people.
As things stand at the moment, those under the age of 70 not considered to be vulnerable through health issues, will have to wait until March for their vaccinations, due principally to lack of supply.