The Unhealthy Brass Neck Of Politics

Almost 1,000 million euros. This was the saving that the Spanish Government anticipated making by getting tough with so-called health tourism and by denying primary health-care assistance to those who were "sin papeles". The then health minister, Ana Mato, announced these measures in April 2012. They involved a reform not of health legislation but of the law on immigration. The target of the savings was the "tarjeta sanitaria", the health card. It would no longer be sufficient to be on the local register - "empadronamiento" - to get a card; fiscal residency had also be to confirmed. Those who were in "irregular" situations would lose the right to health care, except in the cases of emergencies, maternity and child care.

Twelve years earlier, the Aznar administration - also a Partido Popular one - had granted foreigners (and we are talking predominantly those from Africa) complete access to the national health system even if they were in situations of "irregularity". The immigration law established that being "empadronado" was sufficient. Aznar's government was responding at that time to the flood of immigrants coming into Spain, who were in fact being openly invited into Spain as they were needed for building and infrastructure development in order to fulfil the nation's economic miracle.

What a difference twelve years made. Economic crisis demanded that scapegoats were sought in order to relieve the state's debts, while immigrant workers were no longer making contributions of meaningful sorts, all the projects having been completed, mothballed or identified as monuments to colossal waste. Governments of different types had desired their vanity schemes. They implemented them and they welcomed foreign workers to realise them. And then, when the money ran out and the corruption became evident, they turned their backs on these workers and their families.

Of course, there are "illegals". We all know there are. But these fall into different categories, one of them being the workers who, quite legitimately (because the law said so), were perfectly entitled to full health care. This categorisation notwithstanding, when the government changed its rules, there was an outcry - from doctors and other professionals, from human-rights advocates, from Europe.

Come forward to the present time and the government has changed the rules again. The minister for health, Alfonso Alonso, will now allow those who are "sin papeles" rights to health care that his predecessor had taken away, albeit that the health card will not be given back. Critics have described the move as "vague", as it is unclear how health treatment can work without a patient having a card, but it is a move taken, nevertheless, with one eye on elections. The PP wants to appear more humane.

This loss of humaneness was no more evident than in the Balearics. It might be recalled that before he started falling out with Madrid over oil and financing, José Ramón Bauzá was hailed as the model PP regional president, his administration typifying all that Rajoy desired. The rules on health were followed with zeal. So much so that on 24 April 2013, Alpha Pam, a Senegalese immigrant, died in his apartment in Can Picafort. He had been denied treatment at Inca Hospital. He was "sin papeles". He would have to pay. He couldn't. He was, however, an emergency. Or should have been categorised as such and so covered by the provisions of the 2012 law. His death should not have happened. His condition, tuberculosis, was easily treatable had greater care and humanity been shown to him.

There are reckoned to be some 20,000 people in the Balearics who are "sin papeles". The adults won't have any influence on elections, and nor will those in other parts of Spain. It is not their vote which is being sought, though.

Last Wednesday, leading figures in the Partido Popular gathered in Madrid for a meeting at which the party's image was discussed. There will be a "relaunch" of a party which is aware that it could be facing obliteration at the regional elections and, worse still, at the national election at the end of the year. The health issue with immigrants is one strand of an attempt to appear more pleasant, but this has been made all the more difficult by the passing of the Citizens' Safety Law, a measure, like the attitude towards immigrants and health, that has been slammed by professionals (lawyers in this instance), the human-rights lobby, opposition parties and Europe.

It is a relaunch that is almost certainly too late for the regional elections and quite probably for the general election as well. But you have to admire the brass neck of a party that can perform U-turns on issues such as immigrants and health (not a manifesto pledge) and abortion, which was in the manifesto, in its desperation to come across as human and humane.