Healthcare in Ceuta is “strained,” but there is no “collapse.” The Minister of Health, Mónica García, has repeated this phrase on several occasions before the media. She said this after her meeting this Sunday with the president of the autonomous city and PP leader, Juan Jesús Vivas. She has also repeatedly called for “spaces” in the locality to house and attend to migrants who irregularly crossed the border with Morocco on July 30 and 31 under sanitary conditions. According to her explanation, these places are a priority to prevent people currently in an irregular situation from falling ill. Thus, she has advocated dismantling the thesis that migrants are synonymous with diseases, an association she considers “unfair and xenophobic,” she emphasized. On the other hand, Vivas has so far stated that he has no resources to shelter foreigners and has demanded that migrants be returned immediately. This Monday he will respond to the minister’s statements in a press conference.
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A pressure cooker awaited the minister’s visit in Ceuta this Sunday. In addition to the complaints from doctors at the only hospital in the autonomous city, managed by the central government, there is the frustration of many Ceutans. Some neighbors, as has happened with other ministers on previous occasions, waited for the Sumar leader to formally express their criticisms on the street, shouting “resignation! resignation!”.
García had to listen to complaints upon arriving at the Ceuta port and after days in which emergency services have had to handle “50%” more than their capacity, according to the head of Preventive Medicine, Julián Domínguez, who is also a volunteer at the El Trampolín beach settlement. “The diagnosis is of healthcare overload, added to the fact that we are on vacation,” Domínguez said. The epidemiologist confirmed an outbreak of gastroenteritis and isolated cases of tuberculosis and scabies caused by the unsanitary conditions in which the migrants are. Also heat strokes and skin wounds from the sun or caused in fights or falls.
In these 15 days, Ceuta has attended to 5,800 migrants. According to the data presented by García, 3,500 have been assisted in primary care and 2,300 in hospital. On the first day, 1,149 migrants were attended to, but the pressure “has decreased by 70%,” with “an average of around 300 people attended over the different days, varying between 200 and 400.” This Sunday, 28 migrants remain hospitalized. “It is not a collapse situation,” she emphasized.
In this regard, the minister stressed that the Ceuta health system has maintained care for the local population. “None of the operations, consultations, or health care has been suspended. Nor do we expect them to be suspended,” she pointed out. Thus, she stated that “health care for the native population, for Ceutans, has not decreased.” And she assured that everyone who wants to use the health system can do so. “There is no collapse,” she said again.
Along the same lines, García specified that the situation is at level 1 of the guide for the development of disaster plans in hospitals of the National Institute of Health Management (INGESA), the entity dependent on the Ministry that manages service provision in Ceuta and Melilla. The minister acknowledged that the “overexertion” of health personnel in Ceuta in this “exceptional situation” is what has prevented “collapse.” However, she recalled that her ministry has not had to request support from other communities nor suspend vacations in Health, as has happened with Army and Civil Guard personnel. “We have not had to ask for more reinforcements,” she said.
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“The emergency is not in the hospital, it is outside”
Additionally, she recalled that there are “1,475 contracted” in the Ceuta health system and pointed out that more hands have joined since the massive entry last July. “We have 60 more professionals working for the migration crisis.” Nevertheless, she reiterated that right now it is necessary to provide and enable healthy and safe spaces to attend to migrants in the territory. “The emergency is not in the hospital, it is outside, on the ground,” she stressed, then emphasizing that “it is the public health priority” to maintain sanitation in the area and carry out an epidemiological study. Thousands of people remain without a solution on the streets, in settlements such as El Trampolín beach, the El Tarajal industrial estate, or the El Príncipe neighborhood.
García acknowledged that “two cases of tuberculosis have been detected: one that was under treatment in Morocco and another native.” However, she reiterated that the fact that immigrants have diseases, “as we also do,” referring to the local population, cannot be used as an excuse to xenophobically blame the people who crossed the border. Finally, when asked about the number of sexual assaults that have occurred, the minister reported that assistance services have attended to five victims of rape, all of them migrants.
This Sunday, the Government of Ceuta refused to respond to García and referred to a statement published after the meeting with the minister, in which they demand that she “attend to the demands of the Ceuta healthcare collective, doctors, nurses, assistants, and other staff, considering that healthcare is one of the pillars of the State” and ask her not to forget that the city is experiencing “the most critical moment in its recent history.” Vivas will appear this Monday to provide further explanations.
This Saturday, the Government of Ceuta began transferring unaccompanied girls and adolescents who were in a sports center in the El Príncipe neighborhood to two warehouses with capacity for about 200 minors. “We have looked for some facilities, there are not many solutions in Ceuta, and we have found two resources that have been put into operation,” said the Minister of Presidency, Alberto Gaitán, by phone to this newspaper. “They are two warehouses with capacities around 200-plus people, which relieve, but cannot accommodate all minors,” added the popular leader. So far, 1,898 minors have been registered by the National Police. At least in one of the warehouses, the Ceuta Government has carried out renovations to enable a space with bunk beds in an industrial estate.
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