A few months ago, Minister of Health of the Community of Madrid for the People’s Party, Enrique Ruiz Escuderomake some controversial statement at a party conference in relation to the health care model that the Madrid Executive aspires to. The head of the Madrid Health Department assured that the Community of Madrid should do this takes inspiration from British modelsbecause “he is a pure nursing model”, words now rejected by Mario Cuellara Spaniard who has lived in Great Britain for ten years and uses its health system.

During that PP talk, a militant took the microphone and asked the Madrid councilor a question: “There are problems with primary care, but it is true that they are happening all over Spain. I’d like to ask a question, which I hope won’t be too compromising. Don’t you think it’s over models problem?”. Escudero begins by supporting these words: “I totally agree. It’s a model thing, don’t kid yourself. It was thought of in the eighties, with certain derivatives of the model derived from the Cuban model of health, which had a reason for being, but now has to evolve.”

It was then that Escudero uttered the famous words: “In England, the primary care model is a pure nursing model and here we’re expanding to that model for logical reasons. Because? Because access to information for patients is increasing and with digital health it will be possible to provide many things face to face work, that it will be important, and, above all, it is a model with a liquid health concept. You no longer have to have patients in the hospital, you have to get it done in person or remotely”. Escudero thus praised the model based on nursing as a primary care center and with video consultation as a key element.

Now is the moment of testimony from Mario Cuellaraccessible by this medium.

“It is not true that the British model is based on nursing”

“They have tried to sell that the Community of Madrid is moving towards a model based on nursing, as they say, as in great Britain. I can tell you that I have lived here for ten years, my daughter was born here, we have had different medical emergencies during this period, we have all been vaccinated and we go to the doctor when we need one. In these ten years of experience, we have never visited a center attended exclusively by nurses“, began.

“We have to go to emergency from the hospital, to us doctor header, to some center which is sort of a hybrid between a medical consultations and emergencies for serious occasions, and we have been looked after by the relevant professionals in every case, doctors, nurses or whatever is required. So when the Community of Madrid says that the nursing-based model is the British model, we don’t know that modeland we have lived here for ten years,” he said.

In turn, Cuéllar claims to have written an email to nhs (National Health Service, the main health organization in the country) where he asked them if there was a center attended exclusively by nurses. “The answer they gave me was that their center was attended by multidisciplinary professionalbe it nurses, doctors, surgeons, physiotherapists, etc., who are more in line with the experience we have than the words of the Ministry of Health of Madrid”, he assures.

“On top of that, they have told us that the only center of care that is exclusively based on nursing is nursing home, or what is the same, a nursing home. Thus, the British model based on nursing as the sole health care discipline is erroneous. There is a doctor at the hospital, in an emergency too, in consultation…”, he argued.

“Here are the doctors and other professionals There is They are a fundamental part of the health care system. It is not true that the model is based solely on nursing. Another thing is that there are strikes by different professionals for condition work or for overflow that happened as a result of the pandemic, but that’s a completely different matter,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, Escudero is forced to condition his words, then on the grounds that it is “simple reflection”. “It’s a reflection, simply put. My model will always consider primary care“He backed down, despite his previous statements and the beliefs he conveyed.