Eloína Núñez Masid, cousin of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whose management of the health system in the Galician capital has drawn criticism from professionals and patients, will take up a position as deputy director of the Ministry of Social Policy after her departure four months ago from the management of the Santiago and O Barbanza health area. The president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, confirmed this Monday the decision to move Núñez Masid to the active development area, Galiciapress reported.
The head of the Galician government justified the election: “Everyone has the right to run for office.” And he stressed that the position must be filled by a civil servant, a circumstance that occurs in the case of Núñez Masid. “There were surely other possible candidates, but it is certain that he meets the requirements and has the merits,” he defended.
The qualifications that Xunta values are, according to Rueda, his experience in leading “important positions of responsibility” – all in the health field – and the “important experience” that he has accumulated. “What I am not going to say is that there are people who cannot apply for certain positions under any circumstances.”
Núñez Masid entered the management of the health area of Orense in 2009, a few weeks after Alberto Núñez Feijóo took office for the first time as president of the Xunta. From 2017 until May of this year, she was director of health care in Santiago and O Barbanza, where she accumulated conflicts, resignations of heads of department and criticism of her management.
During the pandemic, he angered professionals by accusing them of an increase in the transmission of the virus due to their participation in conferences. He played a key role in the persecution of a doctor who repeatedly denounced the saturation of emergency rooms. And in the space of six months, the departures of three heads of departments accumulated on his desk, in addition to complaints in other areas due to overload and delays in receiving patients.
With the change at the head of the Ministry of Health, which, in the government formed by Rueda after his first absolute majority in February of this year, went from Julio García Comesaña to Antonio Gómez Caamaño – who coincided in the Santiago hospital with Eloína Núñez -, there were also movements in the health areas and Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s cousin ceased to be director in Compostela. Then, Rueda ignored his future and said that it would depend on Sanidade and his personal preferences. Finally, it was in another department where he found his place, that of Social Policy. Núñez Masid is also part of the executive committee of the Galician PP.
In recent days, other second-line appointments of the Galician government have been confirmed. The Official Gazette of Galicia (DOG) published last week the appointment in Augas de Galicia – as general director of Xestión and Execution of Hydraulic Infrastructures – of the former Minister of the Environment with Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the former mayor of Santiago with the PP, Agustín Hernández. Ignacio Maestro, who was general director of mobility of the Xunta, was also elected in this same entity.
