MADRID: Doctors and nurses blame the shock Ebola infection in Madrid on Spanish government cuts that closed a top disease isolation unit.
The government has denied claims that staff at the Carlos III hospital where the infected woman worked were undertrained and ill-protected for treating patients with the deadly disease. But healthcare workers complain that the hospital’s sixth-floor isolation ward was shut down last year — only to be urgently reopened this summer to treat two missionaries repatriated from west Africa after catching the virus.
“The fundamental reason was the spending cuts,” Doctor Marciano Sanchez, president of the Federation of Associations for the Defence of Public Healthcare, told AFP.
A 44-year-old nurse, Teresa Romero, caught the disease from the second missionary. She is the first person known to have been infected with Ebola outside of Africa.
Spain’s painful austerity drive has taken a toll on its healthcare system, with Carlos III cutting its medical staff by 12 percent last year, according to figures published by the regional health ministry.
The cuts were made by the ruling conservative Popular Party to stabilise public finances to try to pull Spain out of economic crisis.
AFP
