The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday authorized the contracting, for a total amount of almost 22.6 million euros, of a health care service for personnel serving abroad.
The aim of this agreement is to facilitate healthcare for personnel serving abroad and for all persons who have been sent by the Administration abroad on secondment and who belong to the ministries and agencies that are attached to the co-financing protocol for the provision of healthcare abroad.
“The Administration is obliged to guarantee healthcare to all its workers, either through the Social Security or through an insurance contract when the above is not possible,” the Executive reminded.
“While health care is guaranteed in the territory of the European Union, this is not the case in many non-EU countries”, so it is necessary to “guarantee health care both for workers who provide services abroad and for all Administration personnel who travel to these countries on secondment”, it continued. “Given that the Administration lacks the necessary means to provide the aforementioned services, it is necessary to contract them,” it added. The estimated value for this contract is 22,591,200 euros.
This service contract will provide health coverage abroad to the staff of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation; Education and Vocational Training, Industry, Trade and Tourism; Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Finance, Justice and Agriculture, Fishing and Food. The staff of the Mutualidad General Judicial, the Cervantes Institute, ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones, TURESPAÑA and the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) will also benefit from this coverage.
This service will materialize, initially, “in the form of health care that matches the benefits established in the Spanish Social Security catalog”, according to the Government. “Moreover, in the current context of a health pandemic, it has also become necessary to contract a service to carry out clinical analyses for the detection of patients infected by COVID-19,” it added.
The decision comes after the controversy generated by the delays in the vaccination against COVID-19 of personnel posted abroad, especially in countries where it is not easy to access these vaccines, an issue that confronted the unions with the previous Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya. Last Monday, during the handover ceremony to her successor, José Manuel Albares, González Laya cited among the “achievements” of her administration “the vaccination of the foreign personnel of the Ministry and other Ministries”.
