Spain would lack an entity to command health crisis to control Ebola

After the arise of the first case of Ebola in Spain, have been discussed the lack of a technical entity that assumes the command of the health crisis. In Spain there is not a public health authority that centralizes the information, manage it and make decisions.

“Here has not being known who was the boss“, said Ildefonso Hernández, President of the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration.

Ebola crisis in Spain has been handled from three levels. First, the Ministry of Health is responsible, with the communities, for the protocols for the detection of possible cases to be applied. The second is the regional. Communities implement these protocols and take care of those affected.

The third, is the commission of investigation into the case of Teresa Romero. This is made ​​up of members from the Ministry of Health (the Minister, Ana Mato, The General Director of Public Health, Mercedes Vinuesa, and the responsible of the Warning Center, Fernando Simón) and from the community (the Counselor, Javier Rodriguez, the General Director of primary Care, Antonio Alemany, and the Deputy Minister of Health Care, Javier Maldonado).

Miquel Porta, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health on the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​criticizes this system: “Public health requires a clear, visible structure with defined mechanisms of decision. If this is diluted, nobody is responsible for anything”, he said.