REPORTED delays of up four years for early detection cancer screenings in the Valencian Community has led to a call for prosecutors to determine the facts.
Spain’s Patient Ombudsman, Carmen Flores, has asked the Valencia’s Prosecutor’s Office to see if there were irregularities in breast, colon, and cervical cancer screenings during the tenure of the previous regional government which lost power in 2023.
Valencia’s Health Minister, Marciano Gomez, said on Tuesday that his department had discovered waits of up to four years for a early detection breast cancer appointment with some 150,000 to 200,000 women impacted.
There were also delays of two years in carrying out follow-up mammograms.
Officials in the previous left-wing coalition that ran the region say that the PP-Vox coalition are just interested in privatising medical services.
Socialist spokesman in the Valencian Parliament, Jose Muñoz, offered his full support to work carried out by ‘public health professionals’.
He added that Valencia is a leader in public screening and ‘this type of issue attacks the professionalism of staff’.
The Ministry of Health says there is an ‘alarming shortage of personnel’, with just 15 active radiologists covering 24 prevention units.
“During the last eight years, no coverage has been given, nor has any reorganisation of the screening programme been established to cover demand and more than 60% of screenings were carried out by the staff being paid overtime,“ the Ministry said.
It also claims that machinery was ‘obsolete and inadequate’ for the procedures with Marciano Gomez ordering a full audit of over the way public health has been run during the last eight years.
Now the Ombudsman Carmen Flores wants Valencia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office to get involved and to verify the screening figures.
“We want the veracity of these data to be investigated because, if true, these women have been put at risk for their health or life, which means a responsibility and dereliction of duty of those who have not taken precautionary measures,” said Flores.
“The pandemic, as for everything, is the perfect excuse even if years have passed since it and it is more of a joke than anything else,” she added
The Patient Ombudsman has based the request on the fact that article 262 of the Code of Criminal Procedure obliges those who, by virtue of their position, profession or trade, have knowledge of a public offence to report it immediately to the judge or the prosecutor.
READ MORE:
