Coronavirus: Catalonia, Galicia and Valencia ask Sánchez to carry out the de-escalation by sanitary areas and not by provinces | Spain

The decision of the Pedro Sánchez government to use the province as a territorial unit to develop the deconfinition plan has not been successful in several autonomous communities. At the moment, Catalonia, Galicia and the Valencian Community have announced that they will propose that the coronavirus de-escalation process be carried out by the health areas or departments in which they are organized instead of using the traditional territorial scheme. The central executive has left the door open to this possibility, which must be reasoned by each of the autonomous governments.

Catalonia, for example, encompasses four provinces, but its health, education and police system is divided into seven zones, which do not correspond precisely to the provincial level. In addition to that, within each of those boundaries, there are also the so-called basic health areas, the area of ​​influence of a primary care center, for example. The Minister of Health, Alba Vergès, explained this Wednesday that the idea of ​​the Generalitat is to create a mix between these two scales and that will be his proposal to the Government.

From the Catalan Executive, the spokeswoman Meritxell Budó has finally thanked for knowing the details of Sánchez’s plan. However, he has criticized the fact that the AA CCs have not been given an open bar to determine the proper areas in which the de-escalation process will take place. “It is not coordination. Coordination would have been taking advantage of the more than 30 years of experience of Catalonia in its health management ”, Budó lamented. “Coordination is not sending data and that the State decides what can and cannot be done,” added Vergès, referring to what he considers a lack of dialogue by the Ministry of Health.

The Generalitat believes that Sánchez’s plan also lacks specificity in key aspects such as the indicators that will allow progress to be made in de-escalation. “When it refers to the number of deceased. What number are we talking about? The assumptions? Counting residences? Only the confirmed ones? ”Asked Vergès. The head of the Interior, Miquel Buch, has also regretted that he believes that psychosocial assistance to people who have been confined for more than 40 days has been neglected.

The 24 Valencian departments

The Valencian Community also defends parking the province and opting for a more territorialized system. Her Minister of Health, the socialist Ana Barceló, has announced that she will transfer her proposal to the Ministry of Health, backed by “epidemiological and technical reports.” The CC AA is divided into 24 health departments, each one grouped around a referral hospital. These areas have an implantation that usually coincides with the traditional regional division of the Valencian territory, which, in turn, does not coincide with the provincial demarcations.

“We have propositional capacity,” said Barceló, referring to the margins of action established by the Government’s own plan. The counselor recalled that the plan contemplates asymmetry “to advance in areas where it is possible”. Barceló added that the Valencian Community meets the criteria to start de-escalation, such as the provision of ICU beds and hospital beds, between Other parameters: Today it has been given the fact that the average of discharges of people who have been infected by covid-19 is 56%, when the Spanish is 48%.

The counselor has indicated that she understands the choice of the province given “the complexity” of the process and the need to “harmonize” the measures throughout the State, but has defended the advisability of adjusting the plan to each territory. Her proposal for areas of Health was already transferred in the last meeting of the autonomous communities with the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, and now it will do so again, together with the technical reports, which also include the analysis of mobility. The socialist leader has avoided answering openly If the government has turned a deaf ear to the proposals made by the autonomies for its unconfinement plan and has pointed out that “the government of Spain must have a general vision for the provinces.”

A few hours later, the Valencian president, Ximo Puig, explained that the provincial division is not “the best one” to face de-escalation in the Valencian Community, where the ideal framework would be the departments. This does not mean making an “amendment to the whole” to Sánchez’s proposal, “from an identity perspective”, but rather seeks “efficiency and improving people’s lives”. It is not a new confrontation between territories, he added. Although he will never endorse recentralizing policies, Puig has underlined that the unity of action has given good results during the pandemic, respecting the action of the autonomies. “Life does not run in a province,” he added.

For its part, the Xunta de Galicia has also sent Illa its request to use a different territorial scale. “The focus should be the sanitary areas, and the zoom should be comarcas or sanitary districts,” said the acting president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP).

In an immediate reaction to the announcement, the nationalist governments of Catalonia and the Basque Country expressed their criticism of the plan last night for “recentralizing” and for not having their opinions.

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