The Diplomat
Trade union pressure on the government increased significantly yesterday over the lack of a vaccination plan for foreign service personnel after it emerged that two workers posted to India and Ecuador died on Sunday from COVID-19.
Trade unions and diplomatic associations have been calling for weeks for a plan to vaccinate expatriates and those soon to be posted abroad against COVID-19, especially if they are or will be posted to countries where access to vaccines is very difficult.
One of those who died, according to the newspaper El País, was Pablo Noreña, secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at the Spanish embassy in New Delhi, the capital of India, where the situation is very serious.
The other person who died on Sunday, after fighting for days against the virus, is a contract worker in Ecuador, according to the CSIF trade union section of the Foreign Ministry. Lilian Torres, a local employee who worked as an administrative assistant at the Spanish consulate in Quito, was reported by The Diplomat to have died, according to union sources.
Dany Ayo, a driver for the Consulate, was also reportedly killed in Quito on 22 March, also by COVID. Claudio Castro, an administrative employee of the Spanish Ministry of Labour in Argentina, also died of coronavirus on 29 April.
In an internal CSIF communiqué, it is stated that the union “has been warning for some time that this tragic news could happen if a clear and decisive decision was not taken to make possible the vaccination of all workers and spouses of our representations, especially in countries with poor health”.
The union stresses that the news comes after last Saturday, Vozpopuli that the Ministry of Health had planned a vaccination plan for abroad that “was aborted to attend to other situations”.
Sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured that, in the case of India, the Embassy facilitated his hospitalisation and made arrangements to obtain the specific medication he needed for his treatment, despite which he died.
In similar terms, the sources expressed their condolences for the worker who died in Ecuador, indicating that arrangements were also made for her admission to the ICU, where she died.
The same sources expressed their condolences to the families of the workers, with whom they were in contact, and assured that the health of staff abroad is “the top priority” and arrangements are being made with the Ministry of Health “to respond to all cases”.
The unions, however, continue to accuse the government of “passivity”, as they stated last week in a letter addressed to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez; to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya; to the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias; and to the Ombudsman, Francisco Fernández Marugán.
In the letter they called for urgent measures to vaccinate employees and family members who are stationed abroad, some 7,000 people, and those who will soon have to take up posts outside Spain, and highlighted that the Ministries of Defence and Interior have vaccinated personnel going abroad.
The unions insist that the problem does not affect just a few countries, as González Laya implied in an appearance before journalists, but many more, especially in Latin America, Africa and a large part of Asia. CSIF is calling on the Foreign Ministry to draw up a list of the most vulnerable countries in order to begin the vaccination process there.
The Popular Parliamentary Group has asked the government about its plans for vaccinating staff abroad, as has Izquierda Unida, which is specifically asking about the vaccination of Instituto Cervantes workers in the different centres around the world, as they believe that this group is being totally ignored.
The Foreign Minister has called the unions to a meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, to address the issue of vaccinations.
