In just 48 hours, the Prosecutor's Office has opened two parallel investigations into the breast cancer screening crisis that is strongly spurring the Andalusian Government of Juan Manuel Moreno.
The Prosecutor's Office of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) opened proceedings on Thursday to investigate the “failures” in the screening, which the Board itself has admitted and which has resulted in the sudden dismissal of the already former Minister of Health, Rocío Hernández. Hours later, the Public Ministry of Seville decided to initiate another line of investigation, this time into the alleged manipulation of patients' medical records on the digital platforms of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS).
The first investigation stems from the complaint filed three weeks ago, when the scandal broke, by two left-wing political parties -Adelante Andalucía and Por Andalucía- and the Patient Ombudsman: they are complaints that point to the heart of the crisis, that is, the reason for the late diagnoses that affect 2,000 women, according to the Board, who were not informed for months and years that they had found a lesion “not conclusive” on their mammograms.
In its complaint, Adelante Andalucía accuses two former Health Ministers and the current SAS manager, Valle García, among other crimes of reckless homicide. The prosecutor has requested that the Ministry of Health report in detail on the “measures adopted to repair the damage suffered by the victims” and to prevent similar future events.
The second investigation, carried out this Friday by Cadena Ser and confirmed by the Public Ministry to elDiario.es, has started much more quickly, because it is based on the complaint presented this Tuesday by the Association of Women with Cancer of Seville (Amama) in the Seville Prosecutor's Office, and which caused another political tsunami.
Amama attached to its complaint copies of clinical reports and patient mammograms to try to demonstrate that, a week ago, marks indicating possible injuries appeared, signed by radiologists with first and last names, and a week later the marks and signatures of the specialists had disappeared. They also reported that where the finding previously said “suspicious” it now read “probably benign”, the two possible nomenclatures for a BIRADS-3 category lesion, which in theory the 2,000 affected women have in common.
This complaint from Amama caused thousands of women to enter the SAS applications – ClicSalud and Diraya – causing “the computer system to crash,” according to the Board's conclusions. The Minister of Health, Antonio Sanz, came forward to categorically deny it, and accused the women of “raising lies” and putting at risk a screening system that “saves lives.” But, hours later, the Andalusian Executive recognized that “technical incidents” were occurring on the digital platform where the Andalusians' medical records are stored, and that is why many patients could not access their records.
This second line of investigation by the Prosecutor's Office is a new blow for the Moreno Executive, which on Thursday faced the entire opposition demanding explanations for the alleged modifications in the medical records. Sanz had hardened his tone against the association that uncovered the screening crisis, openly accusing them of generating “a beastly social alarm” that “collapsed” the systems, but he downplayed this computer fall, comparing it with what had happened the same day to Amazon or to the website of the La Oreja de Van Gogh group.
The Board defends that it is “impossible” to access ClicSalud and delete or change medical records without leaving a trace and that, in any case, “only health professionals can do it.” The spokesperson for Por Andalucía, Inmaculada Nieto, brought to Parliament two images of the mammogram of a woman, Anabel, one before the computer system crashed and another after.
In the first, the findings of a possible injury were marked with marks, signed by two different radiologists; In the second there were no longer the brands or the names of the specialists. Nieto demanded explanations and Moreno, visibly angry, accused her of pouring “garbage” on the SAS health personnel. Now, this derivative of the screening crisis is the reason for an investigation by the Prosecutor's Office, which has not taken even 48 hours to open proceedings since Amama registered the complaint accompanied by copies of several mammograms.