In 2017, the Parliament approved the law on the universalization of healthcare with the aim of overcoming the royal decree of 2012 of the Popular Party (who at that time governed with Mariano Rajoy), which left without public health care for immigrants in an irregular situation. According to this Catalan law (in 2017, the head of Salut was Toni Comín), in the case of not be registeredit would be enough demonstrate the roots for access public healthcare in Catalonia. However, almost seven years later, the Department of Health (under whose leadership up to four councilors of different political groups have passed) has not yet deployed the regulations of this law.
The Catalan universal health law of 2017 has yet to deploy the regulations that facilitate access to the health card even when one is not registered
The case of Ripoll’s obstacles to the registration of immigrants has once again put the importance of this regulation on the table. If it were in force, migrant families like those in the capital of Ripollès would have access to the health cardand with it public health, even without being registered.
Salut is “following the process” and hopes to have news “in the coming weeks”
The Catalan healthcare universalization law established, in its second final provision, that the regulation should be displayed in three months since the entry into force of the rule, which was approved in June 2017. The judicial offensive did not help: in March 2018, The PP presented an appeal for unconstitutionality. In October of that same year, the Constitutional Court (TC) assumed the withdrawal of this appeal. By then the PSOE was already in the Government and one of its first measures was precisely to repeal the PP’s health reform.
And so, until now. The development of the regulation is clue so that really no one is left without public health in Catalonia. The norm establishes that all those people who have access to public health care have access to are registered or, if they are not, demonstrate roots.
The concept of roots
Since the law does not yet have this regulation, It is not clear how to demonstrate roots. “If this regulation were developed, these families would have a mechanism to access the health card even if the city council on duty did not register them, as is now the case in Ripoll. [con la alcaldesa ultra Sílvia Orriols]. The law says this, but it is not applied,” summarizes Carlos Losana, pediatrician at CAP Poblenou and member of the Platform for Universal Health Care in Catalonia (Pasucat).
The matter is on the table of the Health Department. Sources from the department he directs Manel Balcells They have explained to this newspaper that “the necessary process is being followed” to deploy the regulations and have announced that “In the next weeks a new step will be overcome.”
La Pasucat and SOS Racisme met last December 15 with the department about this matter. On that occasion, they were assured that it would be ready this January. Before, in October, the CUP deputy Laia Estrada He asked the Parliament about the same thing, although without a response.
The way of the Red Cross
While waiting for the regulation, Salut points out that the vulnerable and unregistered people can get a health card through the Red Cross.
This argument irritates the Pasucat, created in 2012 precisely for give coverage to the immigrants that the PP law left out. The entities believe that it is Salut’s obligation “ensure the health of these families excluded because they cannot be registered.”
“Instead of generating a standard and known procedure by all workers so that these people without a registry can request the card at the primary care center (CAP), like the rest of the people, Salut resorts to an agreement with an NGO which represents an exceptional path,” denounces Losana. According to this pediatrician, leaving the health card of this group in the hands of the Red Cross means “outsourcing” of management that Salut should assume and, furthermore, it is a “exceptional route” that excluded people are unaware of. “Therefore, they don’t use it, that’s why they are left without a card, as happens in Ripoll,” he points out.
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The entities report that they continue to receive (although fewer than before) cases of people in an irregular situation What are they excluded from public health, partly because many officials They do not know the ins and outs of the law in the absence of this regulation and do not know what to expect. Salut denies that this health exclusion exists, since, when there is no registration, “many cases are conveyed through the Red Cross”.
As a result of what happened in Ripoll, public health defense entities fear that there will be more immigrants who are left without access to healthcare. “If the municipalities begin not to register, We are afraid that there will be more families that they are left without assistance. “There is a legal vacuum,” Losana insists. “Salut could protect these people because it has a law, but it is not applying it,” she says.