The pandemic has worked as an accelerator in many aspects of reality. Some issues that could have taken longer to manifest ended up precipitating this period of exception. The collapse of our healthcare, especially with regard to primary care, is one of these examples. For decades the system has shown signs of weariness and observers have been warning more directly that one of the pillars of the welfare state was beginning to find itself in a critical situation. In the years in which it has had to offer exceptionally demanded coverage to respond to Covid-19, the cracks in the national health system have become an insurmountable problem.
The health reform and the correct planning of the means and existing personnel must become a priority objective for those who have government responsibilities. There is no doubt that diligent use of public funds requires placing citizens' health care ahead of many other expenses. For this reason, among the many possible reflections, we must ask ourselves if it is essential in the long term to continue deriving public investment to fines that, by far, seem less urgent and central than health coverage. In this case, citing this issue solely in spending would be simplifying a complex reality that admits other matters. It is not exclusively about investing more, but also about investing in a more rational, flexible and planned way. The structure of demography in Spain shows that medical assistance will be sufficient in new stressful circumstances, therefore, if we do not make far-reaching reforms, this crisis will worsen. Among the many problems that our country has today, health and the need to develop executive and effective public policies have become an unprecedented urgency. The mobilization of health personnel and the growing concern that citizens observe is a crisis in which the situation will be framed immediately.
Health occupied a fundamental place within the social pact. In addition, the maintenance of universal, free and quality health coverage is an objective that is relevant enough not to turn the health crisis into a mere element of electoral confrontation. A robust health system is not an optional good or a dispensable luxury: it is the condition for the possibility of many other things that dignify our society. Despite the background noise, and if we look at the available indicators, there is no data or evidence that establishes that healthcare is substantially higher in territories governed by one political party or another. Nor does it make it credible to concede that where the political color of a government has changed, obvious transformations have been generated. It would be a mistake to reduce a structural crisis that affects the entire State to local debates that replicate a mere interest on the part that is incompatible, very little, with the seriousness and importance of the matter in question. Health management is a common problem in all areas of the territory and the democratic, territorial and care casuistry requires compliance with a centralized direction in the Ministry of Health. To protect the health of those who live in a specific territory becomes impossible without caring, globally, for the health care of the entire country. This is also one of the lessons learned during the pandemic.
As so often, we tend to turn deep-seated problems into the object of partisan dispute. It is innocent that public and media attention has focused on Madrid, reducing a State problem to a regional cause. This fact is not only unfair but also prevents the development of a holistic analysis that would correspond to a challenge that affects all of Spain. This being true, it seems clear that the president of the Community of Madrid is wrong if she tries to reduce the health crisis to a union demand or labor conditions. The defense of free, quality public healthcare is one of the consensuses in which Spanish society sees itself and recognizes itself as a whole. Procuring sustainable healthcare over time and coherent with the values that form the backbone of our political community is a purpose important enough to require our politicians to add to themselves. Addressing the issue of health in a coordinated manner is more than a necessity, it is an opportunity to record, as a country, that we can continue doing things together.
