Pau Juvillà makes public that he has cancer

CUP MP defends on Twitter the need to break the "taboo" about the disease

and

ARA

2 min

Pau Juvillà during the trial for not removing a symbol in support of political prisoners from the town hall office to the Paeria — Pau Juvillà during the trial for not removing a symbol in support of political prisoners from his party's town hall office in Lleida ACN

BarcelonaCUP announced on Monday that Pau Juvillà could not continue developing his usual political activity because he was suffering from a health problem. However, he reaffirmed his will to try to keep his seat despite the electoral board's ruling to trip him of it. This Wednesday, the MP has made public on Twitter that he suffers from cancer, and has done so, he explained, with the aim of breaking the "taboo" about the disease even though this entails exposing part of his "privacy".

"My grandfather died, as my grandmother used to say, "of a bad disease". My parents gave it a name: cancer –Juvillà explains-. I think I was also a prisoner of this taboo and I asked myself what I had to do". In the hope that going public "will do some good", he has decided to explain his case. "In the last 15 years doctors found two tumors in me, but I have been lucky the two were found by chance and it was possible to act in time," he continues. A month ago another one was found and the anguish and the urgency of the tests started again".

For this reason he cannot maintain his political activity as third secretary of the Parliamentary Bureau. Yesterday, CUP proposed the deputy Carles Riera to replace him. "The current context at the Bureau requires an immediate availability to which I, right now, cannot commit myself, and a clarity that days is not easy for me," he explains.

The MP has explained that he is following a treatment to overcome the disease, has sent a thank you to the "shows of support" and has praised the public health system. "During these 15 years I have been a very assiduous user of the public health system and I can assure you that it is magnificent, I have always felt well seen to, with professionalism and empathy". And he concludes: "Let's take care of it, let's provide it with resources, let's defend it. Long live life!"