On Wednesday José Aix, deputy mayor of Orihuela and spokesperson for the municipal group Ciudadanos, and Rosa García, mayor of Benejúzar -also representing the C’s, have met with the cleaning service workers of the Vega Baja Hospital, who are currently on strike.

The president of the Vega Baja Hospital cleaning committee, Mª Pilar García Albero, explained that “the last option we have is to ask the Vega Baja political parties for their help. It is the seventh day that we have been on strike and we haven’t had a single word from the Ministry.”

On meeting with the group Aix said, “We come to listen to them, as they have been complaining for weeks about the precarious situation they are in.” He explained that “the management of the hospital centre is also looking for solutions, but they do not come”.

He continued, “We share the demands of the workers. We are concerned that at this point in the pandemic, reference hospitals such as the one in Vega Baja and Torrevieja are dirtier and with more risks for the health workers who face the health situation on the front line.”

CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF MINISTER OF HEALTH

Meanwhile the Partido Popular in Orihuela will present a motion at the next ordinary plenary session (council meeting) in February that requests the support of their coalition partner and the opposition groups  for the dismissal of the Valencia  Community Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, for “the disastrous management of health that is being seen in the two health areas of the Vega Baja.”

Ana Barceló, Minister of Universal Health and Public Health
Ana Barceló, Minister of Universal Health and Public Health

The PP considers it absolutely shameful that the demands of workers in the Orihuela Hospitañl have been completely ignored, “showing that economic interests prevail over health.”

The PP also question her commitment to the expansion of the hospital centre “repeatedly promised since 2018, and again before the 2019 electoral campaign.”