Jesús Aguirre, Minister of Health of Andalusia – Spain’s most populous region – explains in detail the COVID-19 protocols executed by his ministry and how they managed to keep ICU saturation levels low. In addition, Aguirre comments on the end of the region’s auction model in the procurement of medicines, a partnership with Fujitsu that resulted in local production of ventilators, and the fact that Andalusia has been trying to unify both private and public healthcare systems, arguing that “there should only be one healthcare, belonging to everyone and for everyone.”
... Andalusia’s hospitals have never been fully saturated throughout the entire pandemic, which has allowed us to be supportive of other regions, sending ventilators and receiving external ICU patients.
