2023-08-06 13:44:35
After a complaint was made known that Vice President Francia Márquez allegedly requested an ambulance for her family in Dapa, Valle del Cauca, the former Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, expressed his disagreement and asked the senior official for explanations.
“It can not be possible. The vice president should clarify. The health of millions of people from Cali cannot be affected by one person, no matter how dignified they are,” former minister Ruiz wrote through his Twitter account, who has been a strong critic of the management that the current government has given to the health system and his project to reform it, which is still being discussed in Congress.
Ruiz also explained that currently in Colombian territory the regulations contemplate that the only citizen who has a private ambulance “at his service” is the President of the Republic.
The former official, however, was not the only one who criticized the vice president on account of the complaint, revealed by SEMANA. The non-profit organization Pacientes Colombia also strongly questioned Francia Márquez.
“Maybe you don’t know, the ambulance service is for patients in critical conditions, if it is the case with your family, fine, if not, you must respect the turn,” the organization also warned through its Twitter account. And he added that the national government “cracks” in health matters.
Two ambulance requests from Vice President Francia Márquez to the Cali Ministry of Health. | Photo: WEEK
Specifically, these are requests made by Jorge Enrique Hurtado Bermúdez, who serves as Coordinator of Vice Presidential Protection of the Headquarters for Presidential Protection, to Lucy del Carmen Luna, Secretary of Health of Cali. The documents show that she was asking for “support” with the ambulances.
Vice President Francia Márquez has been harshly criticized for the request for an ambulance in Cali. | Photo: Week
“Receive a cordial and affectionate greeting from the Coordination of Vice Presidential Protection. The reason for this is in order to request, in a careful and respectful manner, your valuable collaboration and support in the sense of designating the vehicle component that is later related, with 24-hour availability, in order to guarantee the safety of Dr. Francia Elena Márquez Mina, Vice President of the Republic of Colombia, in compliance with her official and private agenda to be developed from 07/21/2023 to 07/24/2023, in the city of Santiago de Cali ”, reads one of the requests that were known by SEMANA.
Later, he refers to the need to have a “medicalized ambulance with its respective operating personnel.”
“Every week she asks us for a medicalized ambulance for the weekend, so that they accompany her in all her transfers without paying a peso. I have seen collaborators of the vice president enter, demanding that it be granted. It cannot be that she does not care regarding her health in Cali and blocks one of the seven ambulances we have, ”a person familiar with the situation who requested that her identity be withheld told SEMANA.
In Cali the availability of ambulances is difficult. (Reference image). | Photo: Royalty Free
The aforementioned vehicle also requires a stretcher with an electromechanical tray system, a suction device, a multi-parameter monitor, infusion pumps, advanced resuscitation equipment, a mechanical ventilator, among other implements. Even these ambulances can be considered by some healthcare professionals as mobile intensive care units (ICUs), which might save the lives of critically ill patients.
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