The Spanish Agency of Medicines (AEMPS) published this Tuesday a report on homeopathy that concludes "categorically" that there is no scientific evidence to support its efficacy and that its effects are "similar to placebo". If, in addition, an approved medical treatment for serious or chronic pathologies is replaced or abandoned, the report indicates that it can "endanger" people's health.

This morning we saw President Salvador Illa againwho has already gone to work.

When he was the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell described Europe as "a garden," in contrast to the "jungle" that is much of the rest of the world. On paper, this supposed garden is based on the security and capacity for citizens to progress economically and materially, guaranteed by a strong state that redistributes wealth through taxes, but above all through basic services. In other words, the defining element of European progress is the so-called welfare state. Despite Borrell's positive words, the viability of this welfare state is being questioned across the continent, doubts that also affect Catalonia and Spain. What future, then, does the welfare state system, on which the Catalan economy is based and on which millions of people depend to a greater or lesser extent, have?

The circulation of respiratory viruses, especially influenza, has once again put healthcare services, which have been operating at their limit for far too long, to the test. Each epidemic confirms this. And while we here cope as best we can with the pressure on our healthcare system, thousands of kilometers away in China, paths are being explored that could radically transform our understanding of medicine.

Gabriel Masfurroll has died at the age of 72 after a long illness. The economist was a pioneer of the private healthcare system in Spain and served as vice president and spokesperson for FC Barcelona between 2000 and 2002 – during Joan Gaspart's presidency – after having been a member of Josep Lluís Núñez's board. Masfurroll was involved in one of the club's most important decisions: the signing of Leo Messi. Years later, he also served as vice president of the Barça Foundation between 2000 and 2015, under Sandro Rosell's presidency. His commitment to sport extended beyond Barça, as he chaired the Laureus Foundation in Spain, a non-profit organization that works to integrate people at risk of exclusion through sport, and was an ambassador for Madrid's Olympic bid in 2012 and 2016.

The privatization of Madrid's healthcare system is once again under scrutiny. And all eyes are on the Torrejón de Ardoz Hospital. It's at the center of the storm after... The Country Audio recordings have surfaced in which Pablo Gallart, CEO of Ribera Salut—the company that manages the hospital—is heard ordering the rejection of unprofitable patients or procedures to lengthen waiting lists. His aim was to perform fewer surgeries, thus reducing the need for staff and resources, and consequently increasing profits. This occurred during a September 25th meeting with group and hospital management: "In Torrejón, in 2022 and 2023, we decided as an organization to make an effort to reduce the waiting list. All I ask is: let's reverse course," he said. He also argued that Torrejón Hospital is operating at a loss, stating that it will never be profitable until the concession ends, and lamenting that the government's contribution is insufficient to cover expenses. Company sources consulted by The Country They countered that, taken out of context, the content of the audio recordings could be altered or misinterpreted and lose its meaning.

51.8% of students aged 14 to 18 in Spain report having drunk alcohol in the last month, compared to 68% in 2015. Only one in four has tried tobacco, whereas a decade ago it was four in ten. And 21% admit to having smoked cannabis at some point, compared to 29% ten years ago. The Survey on Drug Use in Secondary Education (ESTUDES) has been conducted for thirty years, and never before has such a drop in interest in alcohol, tobacco, and drugs among teenagers been observed.

In the wake of the pandemic, the Generalitat (Catalan government) has increased investment in social policies to address the social crisis resulting from restrictive measures, but it has done so 10 percentage points below the Spanish average. In fact, Catalonia remains at the bottom of the list of regions in terms of the increase in social spending between 2019 and 2024, at 14.9%, slightly below the governments of Madrid and Murcia (15 and 16.4%). These are figures from the latest report by the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, published this Monday, which denounces that the overall budgetary growth in this post-COVID five-year period has not been reflected in the areas of health, education, and social services. The recovery in social budgets in Catalonia represents an increase of €383 per capita, only slightly exceeding the Madrid budget of the Popular Party (PP) leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso by a mere euro, while the Spanish average stands at around €660.

Assisted reproduction procedures have an emotional, physical, and economic impact. We spoke with women about their experience.

Madrid was filled this Sunday with thousands of people protesting against the Community of Madrid's health policy. According to data from the Government Delegation, nearly 30,000 people took to the streets to demand more public and better-funded healthcare, while also denouncing the "dismantling" of primary care carried out by Madrid's president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the focus of this Sunday's march. A large doll with Ayuso's face, wrapped in the word "guilty" prominently, was one of the main attractions of the protest.

The Salvador Illa government has set out to finally unblock the transformation of the healthcare system, which has been demanded for years from different spheres of the sector to ensure the sustainability of public healthcare. Professionals, scientific societies, unions, and employers' associations agree that urgent changes are needed to adapt the system to the current reality, with an aging and diverse society that has experienced significant economic and technological changes in recent decades. Therefore, they call for these reforms to be long-term and anticipate future problems and needs.

The Balearic Cultural Work (OCB) has had enough with collecting data from the Balearic Islands Health Service to prove that the Catalan language is not, and has never been, an impediment to filling nursing positions on these islands. This is important because the Popular Party and Marga Prohens's executive had insisted on saying the opposite. According to statements by the Balearic Government's Minister of Health, Manuela García, and the Vice President and Minister of Economy, Antoni Costa, Catalan was "an obstacle" to hiring staff in the Balearic Islands' public health system. They should resign or be dismissed for this. In any case, it is the Balearic Government's own data that proves them wrong.

Measuring blood sugar and injecting insulin. This is the first thing Pau Ribas does every day. He is a 28-year-old engineer and entrepreneur who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 21, a chronic disease characterized by the inability of the pancreas to generate the insulin needed to regulate blood glucose. With these first two morning actions, Pau's daily routine as a diabetic patient has only just begun: throughout the day he will have to inject insulin again (in his case, four to ten times) and he will have to adjust the dose according to what he is about to eat. He will also have to calculate the amount of carbohydrates contained in each food or meal, since the intake of this component increases blood glucose (sugar) levels and diabetes patients must keep it under strict control to avoid damage to the heart, blood vessels, tissues, kidneys, and blood vessels.

"Abandoned, that's how I feel," says Ester Lizandra Artigas, 46, unable to hold back her tears. She has been waiting for five years to have breast reconstruction surgery after suffering breast cancer. It is because she is desperate that she has agreed to pose in front of the camera and show her amputated body, so that this little-discussed side of breast cancer may also reach the public conversation and, above all, so that no other woman has to go through what she has gone through. It is the same motive that moved the other women who took part in this report to allow themselves to be photographed, despite their pain and shame.

The days of the mask are numbered. From Wednesday it will no longer be mandatory to wear it indoors, except on public transport and in health centres. In Catalonia, primary and secondary school students will be the first to do without it since the Generalitat decided to bring forward the measure to Tuesday, coinciding with children's return to school after the Easter holidays.

People are suffering pandemic exhaustion and want to believe that the end of the nightmare is in sight, but the reality is that everyone knows someone who is infected with covid and the list of cases is growing and even endangering the proper functioning of companies and essential services. The peak of this sixth wave marked by the Omicron variant could arrive next week, but it is only the experts' guess, who are also waiting to see to what extent it is really milder or whether it will eventually take, like the other variants, many people to intensive or leave them marked with the dreaded long covid. It is not even a month since we heard about it and now it is already dominant not only among us but also in many other countries around the world. It is too little time to know how this variant will evolve in various contexts, which some have wanted to see as a lesser evil that could signal the end of the pandemic and the beginning of a flu-like phase, with outbreaks still taking place but causing far less harm than up until now. Most experts affirm that this will eventually happen, but they believe that moment not now, and won't even be in 2022, but rather in 2023.

It is a draft, but it has already provoked a reaction. ARA has been able to confirm that the Ministry of Health is working on a new anti-smoking plan that aims to increase taxes on cigarettes and their derivatives and expand smoke-free spaces. Specifically, the Health Department is considering the possibility of raising taxes and banning smoking inside cars "before 2023," as advanced by Europa Press, which has had direct access to the draft.

Barcelona will not be able to offer a municipal dentist at low cost for all its citizens. So says the court ruling published earlier this month, following the appeal lodged by the Catalan Association of Dentists and Stomatologists (COEC), states that it is not of municipal competence, but the Generalitat's. Fortunately, the City Council can maintain the dental services it currently offers for vulnerable groups. And the thing is that if we want to know the degree of poverty in a society there is nothing easier than to look at the state of their oral health.