The death of a young mother in a hospital lift in Sevilla is now being debated in the Regional Government; how it happened and why it happened, which is not the same, of course.

How it happened is known: the woman had recently given birth and was being wheeled on a Gurney bed into the lift when, despite the doors still not having closed properly, it activated resulted in her head being crushed. Mechanical and safety failures all round.

Why it happened is what is splitting the house; the opposition consider that the accident was the direct result of underfunding during years of cuts to the regional health budget. The governing party (PSOE) naturally disagree.

The Junta’s Minister for Health, Marina Álvarez, claims that the Regional Government had religiously carried out all its legal responsibilities where safety regulations are concerned, underlining the fact that it is perfectly legal for them to subcontract the company Orona to carry out hospital-installation maintenance.

This company is responsible for the maintenance and good running of the 1,100 lifts distributed amongst all the SAS (Servicio Andaluz de Salud) buildings. She also pointed out that the defective lift had undergone a service just two week before the fatal accident on the 20th of August.

Finally, she said that the Junta would be suing the maintenance company and asked the opposition to wait until a full report on the incident had been drawn up, before they begun to speculate on why the doors had closed on the bed and begun ascending so fast that the hospital worker never had time to extract the bed before the mother of three was crushed and killed.

Watching from the public viewing area in the Regional House of Parliament were the parents of the deceased woman, and unable to stomach more of the politicians squabbling below, they abandoned the building, disgusted by what they had witnessed.

Editorial comment: The conservative opposition party (Andalucia is just about the only region in the country where the PP are in opposition and the PSOE are governing) accused the Junta of brutal budget cuts. It was impossible that the said MP could not be aware of this hypocrisy as the conservatives in Madrid, when they were governing, sold off public hospitals to the private sector in order to cut health costs…

(News: Andalucia)