The Minister of Health of the Government of Aragon, Ángel Sanz, has reiterated this Friday his defense of a "public, universal, free, and innovative" healthcare system. He stressed that the regional Executive sustains assistance with its own resources and "only resorts to contracting when it is not possible, with funding, access, management, and control always being fully public." These statements were made in the Plenary Session of the Courts of Aragon, following an interpellation by PSOE deputy María Rodrigo.
Sanz insisted that "in no case do we intend any privatization of health services" and recalled that at the Alcañiz Hospital, several services have been reverted to direct management. He added that "this Government will always guarantee healthcare assistance to all Aragonese with all available means" and stressed: "We are not going to deprive the Aragonese of solutions if we have the possibility of offering them."
The head of Health announced that the Ministry will continue to strengthen staffing through new hires. He detailed that there are currently 1,473 more professionals than in 2023 and that, furthermore, the Governing Council has given the green light this week to the creation of 42 new care positions. Of these, 29 are for doctors or physicians, 12 for nursing auxiliary care technicians, and one for a pharmacy specialist.
Likewise, he explained that "collaboration mechanisms between hospitals are also being developed, so that in situations arising from a lack of physicians, due to leave, sickness, or other circumstances, specialists from one center can move to other centers where they are needed. And when the above is not sufficient, we resort to public-private collaboration mechanisms, which is what you call it where you govern."
Debate on the privatization of the Aragonese healthcare system
From the socialist bench, deputy María Rodrigo has accused Jorge Azcón's Executive of pushing the Aragonese healthcare system towards the outsourcing of services and consultations. She has questioned the counselor about whether his priority will be to strengthen public staff, increase the hiring of healthcare personnel, improve working conditions, and plan human resources in advance "or if he will make the privatizing model a 'leitmotif' of his management". In her opinion, "we have been hearing the same thing for three years," rejecting Sanz's "excuses".
Rodrigo has maintained that "the shortage of doctors in Aragon that we are suffering from is not a spontaneous phenomenon nor does it respond solely to a structural issue of the system, which of course there are, we do not deny them, but this problem has specific political acronyms and they are those of the Popular Party".
The parliamentarian has recalled that, in her opinion, "the current crisis began not three years ago, not eight years ago, but exactly in the year 2013, when the Popular Party Government approved a forced retirement, expelling at once from our public system nearly 580 physicians at the peak of their careers, decapitating entire services in the regional hospitals of our entire community".
As she has denounced, now "they use this staff shortage that you yourselves caused to justify the systematic diversion of public funds to private clinics," holding the current Executive responsible for consolidating a model that, in her opinion, favors the progressive privatization of Aragonese healthcare.