The Court of Auditors has archived the complaint from the PSOE regarding the economic management of several public hospitals in the Community of Madrid administered through concession. The procedure examined the system of expense compensation between healthcare centers derived from the free choice of hospital by patients.
The complaint was presented by the socialist spokesperson in the Assembly of Madrid, Mar Espinar, regarding the possible forgiveness of more than 70 million euros to the Quirón Salud and Ribera Salud groups. However, the oversight body maintains that no specific, quantifiable, and enforceable patrimonial harm has been proven for the public coffers.
The complaint pointed to an alleged forgiveness of 71.65 million
The PSOE based its document on a journalistic report that stated that, between 2017 and 2023, the balancing system had not accounted for 71.65 million euros corresponding to treatments of patients referred from five contracted hospitals to public centers.
The resolution considers that the complaint does not identify or demonstrate, even in an indicative manner, a specific economic damage. According to the ruling, the accusation merely reproduces the journalistic reference to an alleged debt forgiveness by the Community of Madrid.
The Court of Auditors thus rules out that there has been proven an irregular reduction or elimination of amounts that the concessionary companies should have paid to the Madrid Health Service.
The body admits a possible deficient management
The court acknowledges that the complaint is based on a "rational inference": that an imbalance in the cost compensation system could reflect deficient management and affect public revenues.
However, it considers that this possibility is not enough to open a procedure for accounting liability. To do so, it would be necessary to prove a certain, current, and economically assessable patrimonial detriment.
The report used as the basis for the complaint also did not include, according to the ruling, figures that would allow for calculating a specific damage. Among the possible explanations for the detected differences was that some of the compensation requests did not meet the criteria established in the Intercenter Billing Manual.
The case was presented after the controversy of the Torrejón Hospital
The complaint was made after the dissemination of recordings attributed to the CEO of Ribera Salud, Pablo Gallart, related to the management of the University Hospital of Torrejón de Ardoz.
In those audios, it was suggested to increase waiting lists and reduce certain procedures with the aim of improving the economic results of the center, managed by Ribera Salud through the so-called Alzira model.
The file agreed upon by the Court of Auditors is limited to the possible accounting responsibility linked to billing between hospitals and does not resolve other procedures or investigations related to the care management of the Torrejón Hospital.
Health took the recordings to the Prosecutor's Office
The Ministry of Health referred the Torrejón case to the Prosecutor's Office due to the possible existence of a crime of injury against patients. The Community of Madrid also opened several internal investigations, whose results did not detect irregularities, according to the published information.
The central Government is processing, at the same time, the Public Management and Integrity Law of the National Health System, approved by the Council of Ministers. The project seeks to limit the participation of for-profit companies in the management of public hospitals and restrict concession models like the one initially applied in Alzira.