The deputy of Más Madrid, (Madrid, 65 years old) has done something as unusual as leaving politics and renouncing his seat in the Madrid Assembly. He did it two weeks ago with a message from the gallery, from where he said he was fed up with the insult and the. Until that day, Figuera was an atypical deputy because she compatible her work as a psychiatrist and director of the Ponzano Mental Medical Center of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital, but when she announced that she was leaving, in addition to Atypical, she became a under.
Son that he made the first heart transplant in Spain, Manuela Carmena had convinced him to be part of the creation of more Madrid because he wanted him to begin to talk about mental health and leave eight years later exhausted and throwing a pull of ears to the “circus” in which the Madrid politics has become. “I am ashamed of others,” he said from the gallery at that time of noon in which they only left to listen to him, even if he became his most viral speech.
Ask: Leave politics, that looks little
Answer: It looks little, the truth, and even less part -time. But that is very Manuela (Carmena). For her, ideas and parties were as important as people, and in fact, Manuela, making a new political party cost her a lot.
P. What crusher is politics?
R. There are parts, such as the one I make of mental health, which seem very relevant to me and that is where I feel more realized. But others seem painful to me. Many meetings, sterile discussions and battle against the other as if it were an adversary. An enemy to defeat and that does not go.
P. What has worn out the most?
R. The Madrid Assembly is a circus at the service of the fight in court, which is the central power. 80% of the time is not spoken of Madrid, there are no songs from Madrid, nor is anything about Madrid discussed. All the time is a wear fight to the central government. And more in this last stage.
P. And the most frustrating?
R. The dynamics of current politics. Negotiate with all the parties a proposition not of law but the direction of your party tells you that it is not appropriate to support it because, for example, Vox supports it. And you wonder, what else does it give if it is good for citizens? Other times you have to give in and let another game present it, even if you have given it, to get ahead.
P. Is it penalized to be normal?
R If you are a more normal uncle and if this way of doing politics is not going, in the background you have a handicap because you seem more fragile or that you are not doing your job well. To highlight in politics you have to go on television, but you will only do it if you are the one that screams the most. Or if you handle the networks at full speed and get thousands of likes. For example, I refused to talk about what I didn’t know. I have not made housing proposals because I defend with vehemence of what I know, which is healthy. If you are a normal uncle, if you talk only about what you know or not insult, there is no place for you.
P. Do you keep something positive for this stage?
R. I want the Assembly I have realized how useful the regional state is. It is possible to promote policies closer to citizens such as health, education, transport, housing, social services …, much more than a centralist state.
P. Is the left very different from the right doing politics?
R. They are not all the same. The hardest founding comes from the right because it feels more legitimated. They do it with Sánchez and before with Zapatero or Felipe González. Since González’s time they could not support that there were some left -wing leaders ordering a country that for them was their fief, because we came from where we came from. The confrontation and strategy of ‘And you more’, is more than the right. And the left falls into that trap. I give you an example, in my first proposition not law in the Assembly I made a mental health proposal and a PP deputy shouted ‘Bolivarian’.
P. When he arrived at the Assembly we began to talk about mental health. Are you satisfied?
R. I think I have helped it, as did the famous intervention of Errejón in Congress. Today my medical partners tell me that it shows that there is a different way of talking about mental health because there are many ways and ours is to separate drugs and excessiveize as much as possible. I think that has been pending. And at the political level, our greatest success is to manage the Ministry of Health with Mónica García in front. That is a very important achievement that I am very proud.
P. What is the most urgent in the public health system?
R. Save primary care. The crown jewel of our health system is primary care and is seriously threatened. They are not injecting more money and the data are evident. The investment has decreased by 4% although they cover it with expenses in recipes and other things, but it is not direct expense in doctors, administrative, tests …
P. Has people’s perception changed about mental health?
R. It has changed a lot. What happens is that a problem is now serious and that is that people are now able to speak more, the stigma barrier has broken a little.
P. How do politicians contribute to collective anxiety?
R. There is a good thing that happened from 15-M and that is that politics became fashionable and became something of all. That caused the media to be filled with politics but in their own way, that is, favoring the Roman circus and the policy show. An exhibitionist and exaggerated policy that does not deepen or care about the important, but of the immediate: the declaration, the phrase, the insult … is a vicious circle that has led to the one who wants to enter into politics to seek the media impact and in the rest of the people to a very serious political disaffection.
P. Is Madrid politics the most tiny in the country?
R. I think so, from what I see on other sides. Although in general I believe that the level of tension is high throughout Europe, it does not matter to Italy or Germany. In Spain, what happens is that there is a very large tolerance for the lack of respect.
P. Spain is one of the countries with the most cocaine consumption, the one that uses the most anxiolytics of the OECD, with upward suicides among adolescents … What is happening?
R. Describe the society in which we are. A more narcissistic society, where performance matters and where the other does not exist. Happiness is having more things and telling it. And that has its price at the psychological level. In the end we get sick from exhaustion and that exhaustion and permanent stress must be covered with drugs, anxiolytics or antidepressants to perform more. Today’s capitalism is no longer the exploitation of the working class, but self -exploitation in order to maintain accentuated consumption with mobile phones: I have to change my car, holiday, clothing, restaurants …
P. But those are shared phenomena with other countries around us, why is such a high level here?
R. Spain is a country too familiar with drugs and a very widespread culture of access to pills without going through the doctor. From the paracetamol of a mother, to the culture of alcohol with adolescents, until you reach young people who consume pills recreationally of those who do not know everything.
P. As he tells, will the blackout be the fast of the future?
R. During the blackout, something beautiful happened and that is that people went out and started talking to the other. Nothing worked and, suddenly, you find the other. In our neighborhood we made a barbecue on the street and each one went down what he had at home. We felt a solidarity that we noticed during the pandemic, but that vanished when the light came. And all that also generates anxiety. The blackout was not so bad.
