Paraguay’s Minister of Health resigned due to health system collapse due to COVID-19 pandemic

Amid the collapse of the healthcare system due to the exponential growth in infections and deaths from COVID-19, and hassled by critics and calls to resign, Paraguay’s health minister resigned on Friday. Julio Mazzoleni was completely confronted with opposition in the Senate, which demanded his dismissal.

“It’s a time when It is absolutely necessary that Paraguayans unite to fight the pandemic and the national interest is above everyone else. Let us hope that this decision will be useful for the union of the country ”, declared Mazzoleni during the communication of his departure from the government of Mario Abdo Benítez.

Mazzoleni said the decision was made after a meeting with the president. “We agreed together that I am leaving the post of the Ministry of Public Health so that the peace that is necessary to be able to face this challenge can truly be generated”he said in statements on public television.

The resignation was a sharp turn from what the official himself had said the day before. After the Senate asked him to resign in the face of the health crisis due to lack of medication, especially for COVID-19 patients, said he respected the opinion of lawmakers but would not resign. “It’s a very difficult time forcing people to contribute, rather than looking to blame”, argued the minister still.

At a virtual press conference, Mazzoleni defended himself by saying that Senate statement “ignores a global situation, a distorted and volatile market”, due to the scarcity of supplies and the slow arrival of vaccines in this South American country. “Out of respect for those responsible (for health), I also say that I will not accept this request from the legislator.

The Senate, with the endorsement of 30 of its 45 members, had approved a declaration a few hours earlier that extended the resignation request of Deputy Minister Julio Rolón and Director General of Surveillance, Guillermo Sequera., the two collaborators close to Mazzoleni in the management of the pandemic. The debate in the Senate was prompted by protests nurses and doctors organized in Asunción to demand the replacement of drugs used to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Workers from the National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases, a reference in the campaign against the coronavirus, took to the streets on Wednesday accompanied by relatives of patients. About, Mazzoleni stressed that “it is a circumstance that hurts us all”, and added that the precariousness of the public health system is a “historic debt” accumulated from government to government.. And he added that “there are funds to guarantee supplies, but the impact of the pandemic is very great.”

To political and citizen criticism of the government and the health portfolio In addition, there is the delay in the arrival of vaccines, which for the moment are limited to 4,000 doses of Sputnik V already applied to 2,000 health workers. Mazzoleni avoided giving dates for the arrival of the million Russian vaccines already negotiated, as well as the 4.3 million doses agreed with the Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO) for equitable access for countries with less means.

“I don’t want to anticipate because it’s not up to me. Our estimates were for mid-March. I hope to receive an official notification as soon as possible “said about Covax vaccines.

Since the first positive case reported on March 7, 2020, Paraguay, among the most behind in the vaccination of its population, of 7.3 million inhabitants, accumulates just over 162,000 cases, while death toll exceeds 3,200.

(With information from EFE)

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