The Secretary of Public Health, Carmen Cabezas, declares it was only a technique, although all the defendants attributed the delay to the delay in the census of agents and the prohibition of not administering AstraZeneca to those under 60 years of age.
The four senior officials of the Ministry of Health accused of the delay in the covid vaccination of national police and civil guards in Catalonia did not clarify this Friday before the Barcelona judge instructing the case who decided to do it this way and prioritize the administration of the dose to Mossos d’Esquadra and to the local police. The four defendants attributed the delay in receiving the census of agents of the two bodies and the decision that the AstraZeneca vaccine could only be supplied to those under 60 years of age, according to sources of the private prosecution, exercised by the Jupol and Jucil unions. The lawyer of these two organizations, Marco Navarro, assured that he will request new proceedings from the court. The judicial process is initiated for the alleged crimes of prevarication and violation of the rights of workers.
The judge questioned, without the presence of the prosecutor and as defendants, Carmen Cabezas Peña, who first held the position of General Deputy Director of Health Promotion and later held the Secretary of Public Health; Sara Manjón del Solar, former director of the Organizations and Professionals area of the Catalan Health Service; Xavier Rodríguez Guasch, former director of Services of the Department of Health and Adriá Comella Carnicé, former director of the Catalan Health Service. All of them refused after their interrogation, of about an hour and a half, to make statements to the media.
“A Precious Asset”
The legal sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO indicated that Carmen Cabezas explained to the judge that the covid vaccination is very different from any other campaign of this type, that she did not make the decision of who should be given the dose before and that she did not know who did. It was presented as a technique that she only executed. She specified that “each box of vaccines was a precious asset”, while she remarked that for Salut “all workers are equal”.
When the TSJC ordered that national police officers and civil guards be vaccinated, in April 2021, only 5% of employees of these bodies had received the vaccine, while this figure rose to 83% in the Mossos d’Esquadra, according to the accusation. The Barcelona Urban Guard, as one of the defendants stated before the judge, organized a mass vaccination center. The complainant unions maintain that with these accusations they do “more than confirm the injustice suffered by thousands of agents” and the “discriminatory treatment” received by the State security forces by the Generalitat.
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One of the defendants came to recognize in his appearance that the census of the agents of the two bodies took “two or three weeks.” This list was delivered by each of the bodies. In the case of the Civil Guard, a lieutenant colonel, and for the National Police, an inspector. The order was given by the general management in Madrid of each institution. All the defendants admitted (including one of them awarded by the National Police) the delay in the time of vaccinations to the civil guards and national police. In a statement issued this Friday, the Ministry of Health came out in “defense” of the “professionalism of the entire team that has participated in the vaccination campaign, which has been exemplary in Catalonia and has been set as an example by the Organization itself” World Health Organization (WHO)
The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) ruled in December 2021 that the Generalitat’s vaccination plan was “discriminatory” for the members of the National Police and the Civil Guard in Catalonia. the magistrates estimated the appeal presented by the Association of the Civil Guard, Civil Justice (Jucil) and Police Justice (Jupol) against the Ministry of Health.