The former Health Minister of Jordi Pujol Eduard Rius i Pey (Tarragona, April 13, 1953) has died in the early hours of this Monday, as reported by the president of the College of Doctors of Barcelona, Jaume Padrós.
A doctor with a clear political vocation, Rius was appointed by Pujol as Minister of Health of the Generalitat in 1996, replacing Xavier Trias, whose team he was part of, and remained in office until 2002, when Artur Mas was already Minister at the head of the Generalitat and managed to get Pujol to create a Government tailored to him. Rius was replaced by the until then Minister of the Interior, Xavier Pomés, and in the words of the president of the Generalitat himself, he was a victim of “the disagreements typical of the movement of pieces” of a broader remodeling of the Catalan executive.
During his almost seven years at the head of Sanitat, the rumor of his replacement was constant, so he learned to maintain his balance on that tightrope and defend his management. He did not manage to cure the healthcare of its chronic ailments (waiting lists...) but he introduced improvements and a culture of transparency in public health alerts.
A CDC activist since 1983, he was made politically and technically in his native city, at the hands of the Generalitat delegate, Josep Maldonado. From 1988 to 1993 he was delegate of the Department of Health and Social Security in Tarragona, and from 1994 to 1996 he was Director of the Health Department of the Catalan Health Service. More political than technical, he was considered a man of conciliatory nature, in the style of Trias, pleasant to deal with but very reserved
He was elected deputy in the 1999 Parliamentary elections for CiU. In 2003 he was appointed head of the Trias Fargas Foundation and later became general director of Acciona Servicios Hospitalarios.
Rius graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of Barcelona and specialized in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. Until 1988 he was an associate doctor of Nephrology at the Hospital de Sant Pau y Santa Tecla in Tarragona.
In an article published in La Vanguardia 12 years ago, Rius was in favor, among other things, of "some type of co-payment so that the system is sustainable, respecting equity as much as possible" in a scenario of economic crisis and social cuts, an model that arrived the following year from CiU. Subsequently, in 2016, together with the other former ministers Boi Ruiz, Marina Geli, Xavier Pomés, Xavier Trias and Ramon Espasa, gathered by Toni Comín, they issued a joint statement to denounce the “chronic underfinancing” to which the Catalan healthcare since its origins.
The current Health Minister, Manel Balcells, has remembered his predecessor for having laid "the foundations of the current health system" in Catalonia. In a note in 'X', Balcells has conveyed his condolences to those close to Rius: "From here I want to express my condolences to the family. RIP."
Jaume Padrós mourned the death in a message on social networks: “Great person and friend. Discreet and peaceful. He was a very good advisor who surrounded himself with an excellent team. Very committed to the health system and the profession.”
For his part, the general secretary of JuntsxCat, Jordi Turull, has acknowledged that this is "very bad news" after echoing the message of the president of the Col legi de Metges of Barcelona.
