Mónica García, a doctor who never practised, is Spain's Health Minister

Mónica García, a doctor without a practice, at the head of Health

Is Mónica García the Health Minister? Yes, she is. And ever since the appointment was announced, the question being repeated is no longer who she is, but why a doctor who — according to her critics — has never practised the profession ends up in charge of the portfolio that governs the healthcare system. The appointment, attributed to the Prime Minister, has fired up a large part of public opinion, which sees a familiar pattern: a post granted for affinity rather than track record. The outrage has even made it into everyday dinner-table conversation.

Who is Mónica García and why her appointment is drawing criticism

The starting point is not in dispute: she has medical training. Her defenders cite it as a credential; her detractors reply that a degree is not the same as management experience, and argue that she has never worked in a clinic or run a service. That is where the tone comes from. She is portrayed as an ideological rather than technical profile, someone who arrives at the Ministry of Health without ever having set foot in the trenches of the public healthcare system she must now coordinate. The caricature that circulates most sums it up in three words: doctor, mother… and minister.

How much is fair portrait and how much exaggeration is exactly what divides opinion. The criticism is aimed less at her biography than at the judgement behind the appointment: the suspicion that she was chosen for obedience rather than competence, a reproach that these days extends across half the administration.

From the flamenco-dress video to the gun gesture

If there is one image that has fuelled the backlash, it is the contrast. A video in which she appears in costume — flamenco dress included — set against her image in government, suited and serious, circulates as proof of the famous change of heart: what was condemned from the opposition is defended from power. The reading is political and also aesthetic; in politics, staging is just another data point.

To that scene is added a gesture: the hand sign, index finger and thumb, mimicking a gun. It has become a meme and a shorthand for disenchantment. A small thing, on the surface. But in a country where politics is settled clip by clip, that detail weighs more than a management plan.

Health as a recurring destination: from Villalobos to Carcedo

It is worth digging through the archives, however painful. The Health portfolio has been held by Celia Villalobos and Ana Mato, of the PP, and Leire Pajín and María Luisa Carcedo, of the PSOE. Diverse profiles, contested track records, and an uncomfortable conclusion for anyone who uses the argument against a single name: the lack of prior healthcare management experience is not an exception, it is almost a tradition. The problem did not start yesterday.

Positive discrimination: the argument that divides

Another line of criticism runs through the affair, a more uncomfortable one. Some argue that her appointment is presented as an example of positive discrimination and that, precisely for that reason, it does a disservice to the very cause it claims to serve: when the criterion is quota rather than merit, the result undermines the image of those who arrive on their own merits. It is a reproach thrown about carelessly, and it should be read for what it is, an opinion. On the other side, the argument is simple: demanding an impeccable service record from a left-wing minister while applauding far more questionable profiles is a double-edged standard.

The truth is that the affair has no ending. The appointment stands, the debate does not die down and nobody has made a move. With these ingredients, one wonders what it would take for resignation to stop being a theoretical word in this country.