Andalucía implements paediatric palliative care seven days a week

Just as the Andalusian regional government was holding its last session on 24 July 2025, before the summer recess, two women approached the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno. Their intention was to get a commitment that the Andalusian health service would introduce palliative paediatric care seven days a week, a service they considered essential for children with serious illnesses.

The women had been invited by the socialist PSOE and Adelante Andalucía political groups and the improvised dialogue they held with Moreno had a significant media impact for several reasons: firstly, because at the time the regulation of visits to the Junta de Andalucía was being debated due to episodes of disruption that had occurred on previous occasions. But also because of the president's response to that demand after hearing from those affected that the commitment to introduce the palliative care service had not been fulfilled for a year and a half.

In front of a large group of journalists who were watching the conversation live, Moreno and the then regional minister, Rocío Hernández, who had joined the impromptu meeting, promised to do everything they could so that the commitment she had just made would be fulfilled.

However, Hernández was later forced to step down after the screening crisis, but on Friday 26 December, her successor, Antonio Sanz, announced that the service, which responds to a historic demand from families, has now been implemented. "This service is already implemented and activated in 100 per cent of the Andalusian provinces," he said at a Partido Popular (PP) meeting in Cadiz.

Sanz said that he was pleased to announce that paediatric palliative care has been implemented in all eight provinces after explaining that it has been progressively implemented, concluding on 16 December in Huelva. He explained that it is a matter of personalised family to family care in a matter of "extraordinary sensitivity" and that this requires "personalised and very professional attention".

Sanz recalled the president's meeting with the mothers at the Andalusian government in Seville and said that the demand made at that time has been met "in record time". He went on to say, "The president went so far as to say that if he did not fulfil this commitment, he would dismiss the spokesperson in charge of health, obviously, which I did not know was going to be me," said Sanz.

He also highlighted that he has not yet completed three months in the job and that in that time there has been a general debate at the Junta just after he took office, during which he added the approval of the decree on difficult-to-cover positions, as well as the "the historic agreement" for the automatic entry of the MIRs.

He added that in 2025, 10,289 vacancies in health care were filled, of which 4,300 are for primary care. "Two months ago all the unions were on the streets and today all the unions are signing agreements with the Andalusian regional government to strengthen public health in Andalucía," he stressed.