Units of the Elche hospital. Joaquín de Haro
The Valencian Generalitat continues with its plan to prevent the health concession model implemented by Ribera Salud from completely disappearing from the autonomous map.
The Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, made progress a month and a half ago, when the department of Dénia was reverted to the public system, which was going to extend the concession of the last bastion of public-private management, the Hospital del Vinalopó in Elche.
And today it was ratified by the head of the Consell, Carlos Mazón, during a control session in the Cortes.
According to the president of the Generalitat, the reports that the technicians have sent them on this matter "advise continuing with the concession", whose contract ends on May 31, 2025 and contemplates the possibility of extending the management model for five more years. the fifteen initially planned.
In statements collected by Europa Press, Mazón has indicated that they will make the “appropriate” decision and that, in any case, they will subject the Elche department to “rigorous administrative control.”
The ruling cannot be prolonged for long, since the Consell is obliged to announce its intentions to Ribera Salud one year in advance, that is, next May.
“We are going to evaluate whether the concession can guarantee” the efficiency of the service, the PP leader continued.
“If this is the case, as until now,” he added, “we will have no problem extending the contract, as our pulse has not trembled with Dénia or Manises”, the other concessions that were pending at the beginning of this year, after the reversal of Alzira and Torrevieja, and which have become public property.
The department of Vinalopó, which serves part of the population of Elche and the municipalities of Crevillent, Aspe, Hondón de las Nieves and Hondón de los Frailes, was the last to join the network of public-private health concessions. devised by the then president of the Consell, Eduardo Mazón, and the current president of Ribera Salud, Alberto de Rosa.
The Alzira model, named after the municipality in which the first hospital of this system was located, spread throughout the departments of La Ribera, Torrevieja, Dénia, Manises and Vinalopó.
With the Botànic (the tripartite formed by PSOE, Compromís and Podem), the first two returned to public healthcare despite the efforts of the private firm to prevent it.
With Mazón now in charge of the Valencian Community, Dénia experienced a peaceful reversal on February 1, and Manises will do so next May.
The Elche hospital will apparently be the last one that remains conditioned to the management of Ribera Salud until, at most, 2030.
Mazón's announcement occurred in the midst of a dispute with the Compromís trustee, Joan Baldoví, who maintains that Alberto de Rosa received favored treatment last June at the Elche health center.
The contest has served to make clear the position of both parties, since the nationalists are fervent defenders of the reversal of all departments of the model, while the PP tries to speed up collaboration with Ribera Salud as much as possible.
After the sword duel carried out by Mazón and Baldoví over the assistance to De Rosa, “brother of a deputy and former councilor of the PP”, Fernando de Rosa, as the Compromís spokesperson has stressed, the socialist deputy Rafa Simó has intervened , who suspects that the extension of the Vinalopó contract “is a premeditated decision and not based on technical reports.”
Simó argues that a week ago, Gómez assured in a parliamentary response that he still did not have said reports.