Dr. José García Buitrón, a figure linked to the first steps of the organ transplant system in Galicia, to the hospital complex in A Coruña and to a militant defense of public health that brought him closer to different political formations throughout his life, has He died suddenly at the age of 77. He was in Madrid, where he had participated in the State Citizen Council of Podemos.
Born in Toreno, in the Bierzo region, in 1945, he studied Medicine in Santiago de Compostela and settled in Galicia, where he developed his career. He was responsible for the first transplant performed in a Galician hospital, a kidney operation in 1981, and was manager of the Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de A Coruña (CHUAC) between 2005 and 2007 and responsible for coordinating transplants throughout Galicia for years. He was also involved in medicine in programs with other countries, mainly in Latin America, to which he traveled on several occasions to carry out interventions and do training work.
His political militancy since his youth led him to join different projects. He was involved in the candidacy of the Unidade Galega coalition that managed to position Domingos Merino as the first democratic mayor in A Coruña after the Franco dictatorship. In the first decade of the 2000s he became a member of the PSOE. It was on the lists of the Socialists in the municipal elections of 2011, in which Javier Losada aspired to repeat in the Mayor’s Office, although those elections were won by the PP in the city.
In the following years, however, he distanced himself from this political organization and approached Podemos, where he assumed organic positions. He was elected Senator in the 2015 general election for En Marea. He recently accompanied Yolanda Díaz in the presentation of her Sumar project in O Courel, in the eastern Galician mountains.
The signs of regret have followed once his sudden death was known. Díaz herself has shared a message from her on her Twitter account in which she defines García Buitrón as “a wise, noble man, always dedicated to others.”
There are people who accompany us in life and who bequeath us their love, their xenerosity and their intelligence.
Hoxe we cry in deep dor to José García Buitrón, wise man, noble, always dedicated to others. How difficult to say adeus, dear friend. pic.twitter.com/DkYPL38PCL
– Yolanda Diaz (@Yolanda_Diaz_) September 17, 2022
Pablo Iglesias has also remembered it, who has used the same social network to ensure that they will miss García Buitrón, whom he refers to as “friend, partner”. The secretary general of Podemos, Ione Belarra, conveys her “deep sadness” at the death of a man she considers “a benchmark.” The band has also lamented his death: “Few people are capable of leaving the mark left by our colleague José García Buitrón”.
Inés Rey, mayor of A Coruña, has joined the messages and has highlighted her medical facet: “Our city loses a great professional, always at the service of public health and society”.
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