Masks will no longer be mandatory in hospitals and pharmacies next week

The Government will approve in an upcoming meeting of the Council of Ministers next week the end of mandatory masks in health and social health centers and pharmacies, where they will become recommended, except in some areas with vulnerable patients, where they will remain mandatory.

This was stated by the Minister of Health, Jose Miñones, in an interview on Onda Cero in which he recalled that the new regulation will advise "necessary self-protection" in case of symptoms of covid-19 or other respiratory infections.

The Government will thus end the mandatory nature of what has been the icon of the pandemic in the few spaces in which its mandatory use has been maintained; as before, the face mask will have to be worn in specific areas where there are especially vulnerable patients, such as ICUs or oncology units, among others.

Aside from masks, the minister celebrated the approval this Tuesday of the royal decree that recognizes the oncological right and that the electoral advance had endangered, since the Senate was scheduled to give it the green light just one week after the call for elections.

The political debate in this chamber was not possible due to the dissolution of the Courts, and although the minister expected that no political group would reject the amendment that consolidated this right, "the truth is that now we cannot take anything for granted" and that is why the Executive has sought "in extremis" new ways.

"We can no longer be sure that the rights already consolidated will not be in danger again and, therefore, that this one would not have that recognition either. The reality is that we did not want to leave that risk on the table," he lamented.

The royal decree-law modifies the consolidated text of the general law for the Defense of Consumers and Users, other complementary laws of 2015, and the Insurance Contract law of 1980 in order to comply with the resolution of the European Parliament of February 2022 on "the strengthening of Europe in the fight against cancer towards a global and coordinated strategy".

With the new law, which according to him will come into force this week, "there will no longer be discrimination" for cancer survivors who have finished their treatment in the last 5 years without relapsing, so that they can access a credit or a service or apply for insurance associated with a mortgage without having to declare their illness and on equal terms with other citizens.

It is not only that it will be easier for them to access these products or services, but they will also not have to assume a more expensive premium, Miñones stressed.

In this way, all those clauses that are more onerous for these people will be declared null, who will not have to allude to their oncological history: "No one is obliged to declare it, now it will no longer be necessary to lie as was being done in some cases," he concluded.