President Juan Manuel Moreno has offered a surprise public appearance from the San Telmo Palace, headquarters of the Junta de Andalucía, a few meters from the headquarters of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), where thousands of people were demonstrating demanding his resignation due to the scandal of late breast cancer diagnoses.
“This afternoon I accepted the resignation of the Minister of Health and Consumer Affairs,” Rocío Hernández, said, after defending “honesty and dedication” to her work. Hernández, who was appointed in 2024, has fallen just a week after the crisis broke out due to “errors” in the breast cancer detection and treatment protocol, which has left 2,000 women with a “suspicious” prognosis without clinical information for months and years. “It is not understood that those affected were the ones who had to report the problem. There is no excuse,” the popular leader admitted, aware that it was the complaint by the Amama association, broadcast by Cadena Ser, that uncovered the scandal.
The Andalusian Government is going through the worst political crisis since Moreno was president, seven years ago. The cancer screening scandal has shaken the stability of a legislature in a terminal phase, practically in the pre-election campaign. Just a few days ago, a member of the Government Council told this newspaper that “the president was not going to dismiss the Health Minister in the middle of the electoral pre-campaign”, because it would be a “gift” for his political adversaries, who have spent the entire legislature harassing him for the deficits in the health system.
But the social, political and judicial pressure against the figure of the president himself, who had to personally deal with the crisis while the head of Health was removed from the public spotlight, has ended up destroying Hernández's career, barely a year after his appointment.
The counselor's dismissal comes minutes after thousands of people took to the streets to protest at the doors of the SAS, demanding the resignation of the Andalusian president, and supporting some of the women with breast cancer who uncovered the matter, belonging to the Amana association. The image of hundreds of women collapsing the center of Seville and chanting Juanma, resign! It caused a “shock” to some of the Government advisors, who saw the videos and photos on their mobile phones, while they were in the plenary session of Parliament. There has not been a massive protest of this nature since Moreno has been president.
Two months to review the 2,000 affected
In the morning, the Andalusian Government had presented “a shock plan” to try to solve the problem of delays in screening, but it was the spokesperson for the Board who offered the details, in the absence of the Minister of Health. The Board has given itself two months to perform a second contrast test on the 2,000 affected women – 90% patients at the Virgen de Rocío hospital in Seville – to confirm whether their “doubtful” prognosis is benign or malignant.
At that time, Hernández had already placed his position at the disposal of the president, but the decision had not been made. It was at 8:30 p.m. at night, at the beginning of the Canal Sur Televisión news program, when Moreno made it public.
The popular leader has said of her that she is “a woman who has dedicated her entire life to healthcare and the last year to public service in one of the most difficult political responsibilities in all of Spain, which is directing the largest public health system in Spain.” He has admitted that he made “mistakes and successes” and stressed the complexity of his task, given the volume of the Andalusian health system. But he also stressed that “the difficult thing to understand is that those affected had to be the ones to warn about the problem.” “There is no excuse. Others would perhaps make them. We are not going to do it. We act,” he stated.
The president will now have to appoint a new person to manage the most turbulent portfolio of his Government, with the largest budget (16 billion euros per year), and an imminent judicial scenario. There are two open judicial cases investigating SAS contracts with private clinics, in which the current manager, Valle García, her two predecessors in office, and a senior contracting manager in the provincial services of Cádiz are accused.
Furthermore, the cancer screening scandal has motivated several complaints to the Prosecutor's Office, both from some of the affected women, as well as from the Patient Advocate, and from two political groups – IU and Adelante Andalucía – that point to the former counselor, among other senior officials, for a possible crime of “reckless homicide.”
Moreno has also announced “a profound renewal in the Andalusian health system.” “We will audit what needs to be audited and we will change everything that we detect that does not work in that organizational structure. The opposition parties – from the PSOE to Vox – have brought to Parliament requests for commissions of investigation for late cancer diagnoses and have asked for the resignation of the president himself.
“Dissociate health from politics”
Rocío Hernández, a pediatrician by profession with a position at the Virgen del Rocío in Seville, had just been managing director of the Aljarafe–Seville North health district, one of the largest in Andalusia. She was appointed on July 29 of last year to replace Catalina García, the previous Minister of Health, who was also dismissed in the middle of the controversy over the extension of contract contracts with private clinics without legal anchorage, which a judge is investigating for alleged prevarication.
The deterioration of Andalusian public health, with large waiting lists of patients for a doctor or an operating room, had escalated to the second problem for citizens, according to the latest Andalusian CIS. It was the greatest factor of social conflict, with demonstrations by health workers and patients practically every week in some town in Andalusia. The opposition turned it into their main front of attrition against Moreno. With eight months to go until the regional elections, at the latest, the polls continue to predict that the PP maintains the absolute majority, only risked by the rise of Vox.
The president of the Board chose Hernández, with a technical and calm profile, with the task of defusing the bomb, that is, dissociating health from politics in the public debate. The former councilor managed to inject formaldehyde into the parliamentary race, to the despair of left-wing groups, but her way of managing the screening crisis worsened the situation and tarnished the image of the Andalusian Government.
It was in an interview on Cadena Ser, when she disgraced the women for “politicizing” the issue and denounced the “manipulation of the Andalusian health system” when the social alarm and a current of solidarity with the women complainants was already palpable. Later, Hernández met with the Amana association and ended up further tenseing the atmosphere. They left that meeting upset that he had “scolded” them and that he reproached them for seeing “the glass half empty.”