Who is and what is Renato Acuña looking for, the challenger of Izkia Siches in the Medical College elections

So far this day, he has confirmed twice that he will be re-elected. “I hope that the medical community will support us in that” (Radio Duna) and “there we will know how much we weigh” (Ya Magazine). You will know at the end of the process set for August 27, 28, 29 and 30, the date set last Friday by the General Council of the Medical College. But the perception of its supporters and detractors – taking up that old statement of if the elections were this Sunday-is that the doctor Izkia Siches Pastén It has a generous balance in favor in this internal struggle that has been colored by political conflict between those who support and question the government’s management during this crisis.

That is why, among those close to and allied with the leader of the guild, it is surprising that in little more than three months she will not face the doctor. Enrique Paris, former president of the guild (2011-2017) and who has almost emerged as his archrival (the encounter they still had in a remote session of the Social Table COVID-19 is still remembered; he ended up disconnecting). Instead of him, the opposition raises the candidacy of the pediatric surgeon Renato Acuña Lawrence, who works at the German Clinic and has been teaching for decades at the Chilean and Development universities. He has already given three interviews in recent days criticizing Siches’ role, accusing her of politicizing the union and little less than neglecting its members.

Although on both sides they say that there is still time for the contest – the official campaign will only begin around June -, in fact it has already been rushed. “Today we have to focus on the pandemic and, later, when the dates are approaching, in August, there we put the Medical College back on the campaign trail,” the president warned today, and her family insist that “it is not yet a priority.” . But up front, knowing that he has an advantage, they do not intend to give him a new mandate on a tray, and they have already shown their teeth as with that insertion that 241 doctors signed a few weeks ago – with Acuña at the head – in which they called to “leave political interests aside ”and avoiding“ co-government and parallel commissions ”.

“As popular as it is, I don’t lose anything by not being elected, because it would be logical, but if she loses, all her political capital goes to waste,” Acuña himself confessed yesterday before The bookcaseAnd, according to her own, this is partly the bet: undermine that potential in which many of those who support her see a political future in Parliament, as Juan Luis Castro (PS) and Enrique Accorsi (PPD) did before. That is, to reach at least a narrow outcome and not a defeat by beating in August. Internally, the challenger wants to focus his campaign on criticizing an alleged oversight by Siches of those affiliated with Colmed for having privileged a more political agenda and demanding more transparency in its management.

Acuña runs this race with the strong support of Paris, with whom they have known each other since the first was a surgical fellow at the Luis Calvo Mackenna Hospital, around 1985. He respects him and follows his advice. But, Why didn’t Paris apply this time, if it’s better known? It depends on who is asked. For the dissent to Siches, because he was already president twice and why go back again. For the official of the order, perhaps because he fears defeat and because such a political and perhaps polarized campaign as the one that may occur would do him a squalid favor to his role as Dean of Sciences of the Universidad Mayor, a position he assumed in August from 2018.

Acuña sees in Paris a natural leader and wanted him to run again (“he wants me to go as president, although I think he should go,” he acknowledged yesterday). Now he wants him on his list, for which he needs, he must, look for a doctor, a woman with whom he can make a counterbalance to the figure of Siches. He also has to sign regional leaders of the Colmed, important pieces in the internal elections of the union. In the last one (2017), where the list of Siches beat two others with about 53%, they voted 11,866 affiliates, a figure that Paris then labeled a “historical record”. Usually around 6,000 vote less, recalls one leader.

The opposition to Siches is clear that in this competition they play with the colors of the ruling right with everything that has been said and criticized back and forth, and will seek to exploit that flank. In the union there are political preferences and there are doctors who militate, but Acuña affirms that he does not, that “I have never done it” and that “half of my friends on the left say they are on the right, and half of my friends on the right say they are from the left. “And in the months to come he will have to deal with an electoral environment, different from the academic life he claims to be used to. But some of this is in his blood.

His father, Rubén Acuña, was president of the Medical College during the Popular Unit, and as such led a union strike against President Salvador Allende. He was close or a militant of the DC, then part of the CODE and tenacious opponent of the government. He had to negotiate with him sheets of requests that accepted him, but the staff insisted on continuing with the pressure measures. Acuña senior left office almost simultaneously with the coup.

But Acuña Jr. insists that “I have friends on the left and on the right with whom I argue,” and that his goal is to depoliticize the union. He has decided to go carefully though, because he would rather forget his stumble in the interview he gave him this week. passed to Emol, in which he demanded a Colmed “for the doctors and for the doctors. We have to recover the Country Club, which is in debt and closed due to an electrical problem for two years, and if the board had put the same effort that it put into human rights and in press points, we would have a luxury club ” .

It rained, obviously, criticism and mockery. “He has to learn,” comment his allies. Acuña plans to go more carefully, and sometimes has the support, informal advice, of the Paris team. Memes aside, in the internal world of the order, the country club and others benefits do matter to its affiliates. That yes, in the team of Siches deny that the space -located in La Dehesa, purchased in 1971- was closed for such a long time, but that only specific spaces such as the casino, due to damages that are dragged of the previous management.

More important to the Galician people is the insurance known as Falmed (Medical Legal Assistance Foundation), which feeds on fees and contributions and protects members with malpractice insurance, in the event of legal actions by negligent patients. It also provides a single contribution to the families of deceased members. It is one of the main motivations for college: protecting yourself.

Where Acuña intends to insist is on internal issues such as an audit initiated as a result of possible irregularities with the monies derived from the quotas in the Regional Valparaíso, and of which – he alleges – nothing is known yet. Siches’ allies argue that the same directive was initiated and that it was not at the request of the dissent, and that the facts go back to the previous administration. The one in Paris.

Where will the challenger bet to get strong? First, he trusts that the generations of doctors he has been teaching since the late 1970s (the first was anatomy of the heart) vote for him. He also has his peers at the German Clinic, where he works and has operated on several children of doctors. And he hopes to win support in regions. Additionally, it has its sights set on the regional Santiago, whose president, the doctor Natalia Henríquez, announced last week that he was resigning. In the union some of the opposition say that she and Siches, formerly allies, broke relations due to severe internal problems.

Given all this new panorama, those close to Siches say that they will face the set with the support of different groups. They say that during the pandemic she maintains constant dialogue with networks and societies of infectious diseases, microbiologists, intensivists, anesthetists and others with whom she shares what she brings and brings from the sessions of the Social Table COVID-19 in which she participates. They hope that, as they feel represented, they will have their support in August. And they insist that she maintains networks with several public hospitals (she works 22 hours a week in San Juan de Dios).

You have not defined your list yet, but at the moment it leans in a close circle. There are the vice president Patrick meza, with whom he was on the board of the Regional Santiago when she presided over it; the doctor Roberto Estay, president of the Department of Policies and Health Studies; the doctor Square Christopher, secretary of that unit, and – among others – the doctor Carol Muñoz, president of general area doctors, a group with which the table has forged alliances.

In August they will know how much they weigh.