The first day of the period to submit applications for the regularization of migrants throughout the country is also the day of the first controversy in Extremadura regarding the measure adopted last Tuesday. It is expected that only about 3,000 foreign people in the region will benefit from this administrative procedure, but the acting Minister of Health and Social Services, Sara García Espada, has warned that this could lead to a foreseeable increase in healthcare pressure on the health system. Specifically, García Espada has stated that the measure will have an “impact” on the Extremadura Health Service (SES), which she justified by the increase in the number of users.
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The acting minister believes that the change will not lie in urgent care, which has been guaranteed until now, but in access to non-urgent treatments and surgeries. “Neither in Extremadura nor anywhere in Spain does anyone die from an unattended emergency,” said the health minister, assuring that the system has already responded to the emergencies of undocumented migrants.
However, the ongoing regularization will imply, in her words, “a paradigm shift,” as they will now be able to access full benefits of the public health system, including interventions.
The statements have been responded to by the Government delegate in Extremadura, José Luis Quintana, who described the minister’s words as “inhumane” and asked her to retract. “I think she should regret the statements she made,” referring to the warning about healthcare pressure.
Also from the opposition groups to the acting Government, from the PP, the new secretary general of the PSOE of Extremadura, Álvaro Sánchez Cotrina, criticized that the regional government is more focused on “criminalizing” migrants than on solving the structural problems of the health system. In a message on social media, he said that this type of approach responds to an “easy discourse” that, in his opinion, hides “poor management.”
In Unidas por Extremadura, its leader, Irene de Miguel, accused the minister of using an “indecent” and “racist” discourse, reproaching her for linking regularization with the increase in waiting lists in a community that, according to her complaint, already has high healthcare delay times.
García Espada, for her part, has rejected the accusations and assured that the criticisms have exceeded the limits of political confrontation. “They are disqualifications, serious, false, and totally unacceptable accusations,” she stated, “the people of Extremadura expect work, management, and results. That is my daily goal and that is where the political debate should be focused,” she emphasized.
