Marina Geli, the former minister for the PSC who is a member of Junts and directs a Faculty of Medicine

BarcelonaFormer Minister of Health for the PSC, socialist former deputy, and former councilor in the Sant Gregori City Council, Marina Geli played a prominent role in the governments of Pasqual Maragall and José Montilla with the health portfolio. In 2014, however, she clashed with the socialists and ended up breaking with them because she wanted to defend sovereignty during the full emergence of the "Procés". In 2015, she left politics after having been a non-attached deputy, and since then her life has changed completely. What has she done and what is she doing now? In conversation with ARA, Geli assures that she does not want to return to politics and that she feels very good as coordinator of the Center for Health and Social Studies to promote research transfer, while also being the general director of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Vic – which was launched precisely when Geli stepped down from politics. She continues to live in Sant Gregori, as always – she also lived there when she was a minister – and travels to Vic by car.

She was a doctor from 1981 to 1995 at the Trueta Hospital, a councilor in Sant Gregori from 1984 to 1992, and a deputy and minister between 1995 and 2015. "I am just as happy as in other stages, now without the public media pressure of politics," she emphasizes. At the Faculty of Medicine, she has promoted several degrees, such as dentistry and audiology, and anticipates that in two years' time, veterinary and neuroscience degrees will be launched.

However, she "loved" parliamentarism "very much" and is not yet completely detached from politics. "When I disagreed with the PSC, I helped create Més Esquerres, then I helped create Junts pel Sí, and when Junts was created, I was a member as a grassroots affiliate," she comments. She now explains that she helps with sectoral health matters and does not get involved in the rest of "day-to-day politics," as she is "zero organic." "I am part of President Puigdemont's advisory council, but I focus on the sectoral area," she points out.

She left politics in 2015 and does not want to continue in it "by conviction" because "it has changed a lot," among other things since the entry of Ciudadanos, she maintains. She arrived at independence from "asymmetric federalism, from Catalanism," of a person very linked to the Maragall era. Unlike her time as a politician or as a doctor, she now has her weekends free, but she will make an even bigger change in two years' time when she retires. She now manages large teams and wants to complete the challenge of launching the veterinary and neuroscience degrees before stepping down.