María Luisa Carcedo Roces (born 30 August 1953) is a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

doctor, politician and former senator who belongs to the

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

(PSOE). From 2018 to 2020, she served as minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare after the resignation of Carmen Montón. Previously, she also served as the first High Commissioner for the Fight against Child Poverty from June to September 2018, a position within the Office of the Prime Minister. In

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, Carcedo was elected for the first time to represent

Asturias Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...

in the

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Ma ...

. She was re-elected two more times, in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. In

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

, she ran for a seat at the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, a seat that she got. She resigned from the Senate in 2018 when she was appointed High Commissioner and was elected again for Congress in 2019.

Biography

Carcedo has a degree in medicine and surgery from the

University of Oviedo The University of Oviedo ( es, Universidad de Oviedo, Asturian: ''Universidá d'Uviéu'') is a public university in Asturias (Spain). It is the only university in the region. It has three campus and research centres, located in Oviedo, Gijón ...

and a diploma in business medicine. She began her professional activity in Primary Health Care from 1978 to 1984, and since 1995 she has been working at the Natahoyo Health Center in

Gijón Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and municipality by population in the autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coast of the Cantabrian Sea in the Bay of Biscay, in the cent ...

Political career

Related to the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

since young ages, she started to assume public offices in 1984 as director of the local health centres of the Nalon Valley an office where she worked until 1988 when she was appointed Regional Director of Public Health of the Regional Government of Asturias. In the regional elections of 1991 she was elected MP. Between 1991 and 1995 she was the Regional Minister of Environment and Town Planning. She was elected MP again in the regional elections of 1995, 1999 and 2003. Moreover, she was the spokesperson of the

PSOE The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

in the

Parliament of Asturias The General Junta of the Principality of Asturias (in Spanish: ''Junta General del Principado de Asturias'', in Asturian: ''Xunta Xeneral del Principáu d'Asturies'') is the parliament of Asturias, an autonomous community of Spain. Its Statute of ...

between 1999 and 2003. It was expected she to continue as spokesperson in the period of 2003-2007 but she resigned in 2003 to participate in the 2004 general election where she was elected MP of the

Spanish Parliament The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies meet ...

. She revalidated its seat in the 2008 general election but she resigned after the Public Administrations Minister,

Elena Salgado Elena Salgado Méndez () (born 12 May 1949 in Ourense, Galicia, Spain) is a Spanish politician of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and held several ministerial portfolios during her politi ...

, offered her to be the President of the

Evaluation and Quality Agency The State Agency for the Evaluation of Public Policies and Quality of Services (AEVAL), commonly known as The Evaluation and Quality Agency, was a Spanish public agency responsible for the promotion, performance evaluation, and impact analysis of ...

, an office that she accepted and occupied until the 2011 general election, revalidating its seat again but losing the office of President of the Agency after the change of government. After the 2014 Extraordinary Congress of the

she became member of the Federal Executive Committee (executive body of the party) as Secretary of Social Welfare, renouncing the Secretary of Economy, Employment and Sustainability that until then she held in the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party Federation of Asturias. In September 2015, she was appointed

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

by the Parliament of Asturias, renouncing to her seat at

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

and she was also appointed Secretary-General of the Socialist Party in Senate. She was appointed senator again after the 2015 general election and the 2016 general election. In February 2016, she was one of the chosen by the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party,

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) is a Spanish politician who has been Prime Minister of Spain since June 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since June 2017, having pr ...

to negotiate with other parliamentary groups in an effort to make a new government. After the 2017 Extraordinary Congress of the

and the re-election of Pedro Sánchez as Secretary-General, he appointed Carcedo as Executive Secretary of Health of the party and he returned her the office from which she was stripped apart by the Party's Caretaker Committee, Secretary-General of the party in the Senate. With the successful no-confidence motion against Mariano Rajoy in June 2018,

became

Prime Minister of Spain The prime minister of Spain, officially president of the Government ( es, link=no, Presidente del Gobierno), is the head of government of Spain. The office was established in its current form by the Constitution of 1978 and it was first regula ...

and gave her his trust again appointing her as High Commissioner for the Fight against Child Poverty, an office that she held until September 2018, when the

Health Minister A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Count ...

Carmen Montón resigned and she was promoted to that office.

Health Minister

In September 2018, Pedro Sánchez appointed her as Minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare of the

Government of Spain gl, Goberno de España eu, Espainiako Gobernua , image = , caption = Logo of the Government of Spain , headerstyle = background-color: #efefef , label1 = Role , data1 = Executive power , label2 = Established , da ...

after the resignation of her predecessor, Carmen Montón. As well as Montón, Carcedo took a tough position over

homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...

and other

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...

s saying that one of her main compromises was «to fight against pseudosciences, and homeopathy is one of them». A few days after that affirmation, the Health Ministry ordered the withdrawal of thousands of homeopathic products from market, something that hundreds of scientists had asked a few months earlier. Continuing with this position, Minister Carcedo wanted to stop the «intrusiveness of the pseudosciences in the health assistance» by forbidding by law the use of this products in «prioritarian» health centres. This would be done in coordination with the

Ministry of Science A Science Ministry or Department of Science is a ministry or other government agency charged with science. The ministry is often headed by a Minister for Science. List of Ministries of Science Many countries have a Ministry of Science or Ministry ...

and the Regional Health Departments. Another objective that Carcedo had was to continue with the objectives marked in her previous job as High Commissioner for the Fight against Child Poverty, saying that her and her team aim was to finish with «

child poverty Child poverty refers to the state of children living in poverty and applies to children from poor families and orphans being raised with limited or no state resources. UNICEF estimates that 356 million children live in extreme poverty. It's estima ...

, that they hildrencan live with their families without having to worry if they are going to have enough resources for the most basic». In January 2020, the Prime Minister replaced her with

Salvador Illa Salvador Illa Roca (born 5 May 1966) is a Spanish politician who served as Minister of Health of Spain from 2020 to 2021. He has been the Secretary for Organization of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia since 2016, and the candidate for the p ...

. She is credited as the originator of the

euthanasia law Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different Legali ...

passed in Spain in 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carcedo, Maria Luisa 1953 births 20th-century Spanish women politicians 21st-century Spanish women politicians Health ministers of Spain Living people Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the General Junta of the Principality of Asturias Members of the Senate of Spain People from San Martín del Rey Aurelio Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politicians Women government ministers of Spain Women members of the Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 14th Congress of Deputies (Spain)