Nurses erupt against the Spanish Government

USPA NEWS - The Spanish health sector cannot take it anymore. Marathon days and increasing pressure in the fight against the Coronavirus, together with the lack of adequate means to carry out their work, has led the 307,000 Spanish nurses to lead, through the President of the Spanish General Nursing Council, Florentino Pérez Raya, a harsh letter to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, denouncing his situation.

More than 14 percent of Spanish nurses that fight Coronavirus have been infected, according to official data from the Ministry of Health. "The data provided daily by those who, to the greatest irritation by all, are the same that predicted -with pathetic scientific aura- a minimal incidence of this pandemic in our country highlights how Spain is the country with the highest rate of infected health professionals from all over the world,“ says the letter addressed to the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez. “You are aware of the enormous insufficiency of means with which health professionals and, especially, nurses located in the first line of the fight against COVID-19 are carrying out their difficult task,“ he adds.

The letter covers the precariousness of the means suffered by Spanish health professionals: "I assure you that you would feel real shame and outrage if you attended the visualization of the preventive material resources with which, presumably, our professionals try to guarantee their own clinical safety and the safety of their patients, many of them manufactured in a truly artisanal way by them. I also assure you that this 'dread' would reach shocking levels if compared to the means of protection used, for example, in China by the same professionals of their level.“

The sanitarians blame the Government: “This, Mr. President, is not a product of chance; it is a product of helplessness, it is a product of the incompetence that comes with the sad fact that in Spain, the country whose Government you preside, is unable to this day to provide, as it would be its obligation, health professionals with the minimum resources that would prevent exposure to avoidable risk."

And he adds: “We have been listening to the last few days continuous warnings that the necessary material is about to arrive to guarantee the safety of people and, at the same time, we are stunned and not without indignation that these media do not reach the end of the chain, where professionals have to deal with Coronavirus-infected patients every day, every hour and every minute. Today we are informed of a millionaire investment that -apparently- would increase resources over the next eight weeks, Mr. President. Although the news may be encouraging, does not this lack of foresight - when, as it has been known now, the Government knew of the existence and effects of Covid-19 at least since last January - another provocation and even a mockery to the professionals? Don't you think that even if the materials arrive over the next eight weeks, they are already running late?“

"This is not the time to feed false hopes, as has been done until today, but to give effective responses," adds the letter to Pedro Sánchez. "I have to tell you, as head of the nursing profession in Spain, that we are adopting all the means at our disposal and to the extent that the law allows us at this very peculiar time to contribute as far as we can additional means that the nurses.“

And he warns that "in the event that this insecurity persists, we will be forced to adopt legal measures of all kinds that proceed in demanding the responsibilities inherent in the dramatic situation that nursing professionals are going through."