50 minutes of "police" and "very aggressive" interrogation of the Andalusian nurse, only in Catalan and with a representative from the Government

The Generalitat subjected the Andalusian nurse harassed by the independence movement to an interrogation carried out entirely in Catalan, knowing that, after only six months working in Catalonia, she did not control the language.

Begoña Suárez had to be assisted by her lawyer to understand the questions that were put to her on March 28, the day on which she was summoned to testify in the framework of the investigation that the Government ordered to open against her after a video was released in which He criticized the requirement to accredit the C1 level of Catalan to take the opposition.

As stated in the summons, to which EL MUNDO has had access, the Generalitat is treating the matter as “reserved information” and has entrusted the investigations to its own instructor, from the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS), instead of to allow the Vall d'Hebron hospital itself, where the health company worked until its contract expired on March 31, to take charge of the case.

“Here we have instructors”, emphasize sources from the center familiar with the investigation, who highlight the “police and very aggressive tone” that the head of the Generalitat used to question the nurse from Cádiz and the other three health workers who appeared in the video. The instructor also addressed Suárez's colleagues exclusively in Catalan, despite the fact that only one of them is Catalan: the other two come from Andalusia and the Basque Country.

Summons sent by the Generalitat to Begoña Suárez. AND. m.

In the interrogations, which consisted of 40 questions and lasted about 50 minutes, the nurses were not asked about any aspect related to their professional performance or the quality of care provided to users of the Catalan health system, “which is what is truly important », add sources from Vall d'Hebron, who also point out the exceptionality of this investigation, taking into account that no other similar ones have been opened due to the filming of videos or the capture of photographs in the health center, despite the fact that it is a situation that occurs regularly.

The health workers claimed before the Generalitat investigator that the images were recorded during their “lunch break hours” and that they were all at the “control point” to which they were assigned to keep company with one of the nurses who appear in the images.

Except for Suárez, who did not want to continue, all have had their contracts renewed and the four are waiting expectantly for the conclusion of the investigation, which is still open.. The sanitation companies were cited as “presumed accused” by virtue of the decree that regulates the “disciplinary regime of the public function of the Administration of the Generalitat”. After the first actions carried out, they are waiting for notification of the initiation of the file or the filing of the proceedings, despite the fact that the Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, assured on April 3 that the investigation against the Cádiz nurse he had “decayed” because his contract had not been renewed.

lynching in networks

It was Balcells himself who led the accusation of Suárez by calling the words of the Andalusian nurse “intolerable” after her video was leaked. «From the center to the Department of Health we will get to the bottom of the matter. We open a file. The health system must guarantee care in the language of Catalonia,” the minister brandished on Twitter while a mob of users of this and other social networks lynched the nurse with messages as hurtful as: “Let her go home to work and speak their language”, “he would exile you to your fucking community or he would shoot you and leave you in a fucking ditch, daughter of the great whore” or “what he has to do is go to his beloved Cádiz and not look for work in Catalonia and If he can't find it, fuck him.”

«Right now I am very afraid to go out, because of the consequences beyond the hospital. There are people who are very crazy and can come to beat me up. I have received a lot of threats,” the health company transferred that same day in a message sent to her hospital colleagues that this newspaper revealed.. And, then, he requested the leave due to anxiety symptoms, which prevented him from carrying out his work in the last days of his contract before returning to Cádiz, where he is now.

While the instruction against the nurse and her companions continued its course, the Minister of Health pressed from the Parliament to ensure the punishment of the health workers. “The company [El Instituto Catalán de la Salud] has to take measures regardless of the lack of respect towards their own language,” Balcells said on March 9 – when the defendants had not yet given a statement – to later indicate the breaches by the which, presumably, should be filed: “Make a video in the workplace, with the institutional gown, without a mask and without the hygienic measures of the place.”

Sources from Vall d'Hebron confirm that Balcells' actions coincide with a “renewal” in the Department of Health to prioritize charges “from the hard wing of ERC”. This process has been taking place since Junts left the Government of the Generalitat last October, assuming the Republican Health portfolio.

The Government has also made the opening of the investigation against nurses coincide with an increase in Catalan classes offered to health workers arriving from other autonomous communities or countries.

On March 14, the Executive led by Pere Aragonès agreed to multiply by 10 the “language awareness sessions” for medical residents from outside Catalonia. The courses offered by the Consortium for the Linguistic Normalization of Catalonia for these toilets will go from 30 to 300 and have already begun to be offered in Vall d'Hebron.

This newspaper has had access to the internal communications of the Department of Health sent to the workers of the Vall d'Hebron hospital in which it makes training available to them to acquire a basic level of Catalan -B1 and B2- and, therefore, below the C1 level necessary to sit for opposition. Likewise, the Catalan Health Institute warns that these courses do not exempt from taking the official exams that allow obtaining the necessary certificate to accredit the knowledge of Catalan among non-autochthonous health workers.

1,400 nurses

In the last two years, the Generalitat has hired 1,400 nurses from Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla to fill vacancies in the main hospitals in Catalonia. And the reception by separatism has always been hostile. Last year, the Platform for Language protested before the Government, which it publicly asked, through a message published on social networks, “how it will guarantee care in Catalan for patients by the Andalusian nurses that have just joined ».

«Assisting in Catalan if this is the patient's language is a factor of normality and quality in the provision of the service. Despite this, in certain care circumstances, what is prioritized is health care, “said the Department of Health at the time.