Last January, the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) reactivated the emergency contracts (by hand) with private clinics that a judge is investigating for a possible crime of prevarication, as they are covered by a law enabled in a pandemic that had already been repealed. Ten months earlier, the spokesperson for the Andalusian Government had announced at the Government headquarters the cancellation of this type of contracts.
Between January and July of this same year, the SAS has once again awarded more than 28 million euros to ten private hospitals by signing up to nine addendums (expenditure extensions) to the same emergency administrative file, dated January 20, 2021, and which constitutes the epicenter of the judicial case against the Government of Juan Manuel Moreno.
The nine addendums, to which this newspaper has had access, are “modifications” to the budget originally agreed with these companies three years ago, to continue referring patients to their clinics in 2024. This is the “fourth”, the “fifth ”, the “seventh” and even the “eighth” increase in spending with the same private hospital, but in all cases the contracted service is the same: the “provision of medical, diagnostic and therapeutic healthcare for procedures oncology”. All are authorized by the current SAS manager, Valle García, who has held the position since December 2023.
The first six spending increases in contracting jointly with these clinics were signed by García on January 17, just one month after his appointment, and for an amount greater than 22 million euros. Ten months ago, on March 14, 2023, the Andalusian Government had announced that it was ending emergency hiring, 48 hours after elDiario.es Andalucía revealed that it had extended an exceptional contracting procedure by hand for two and a half years , without legal coverage, until June 2023.
The other three addendums, for an amount of 5.93 million euros, were signed by the SAS manager on July 18, still under the command of the previous Minister of Health, Catalina García. A week later, Moreno dismissed her but kept her in his cabinet, assigning her the Environment portfolio, in a government crisis to reset the legislature mid-term. In her place he appointed the current Minister of Health, Rocío Hernández Soto.
Between January 2021 and June 2023, the SAS signed up to four extension resolutions of the famous File 110/2021, subject to the Emergency Agreement of January 20, 2021, which was authorized by the then SAS manager and later Deputy Minister of Health, Miguel Angel Guzman.
The initial budget of that file to refer patients to private clinics was 70 million euros, but it ended up quadrupling to 243 million through continuous addendums. Each time the term of the initial contract expired [el primero caducaba en diciembre de 2021]the SAS signed a new extension resolution arguing the “continuity of the critical situation of the pandemic due to the considerable increase in infections.”
He did so until the summer of 2023, when elDiario.es reveals the news that causes a political stir and an immediate reaction from the Board. The then spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández Pacheco, announced that this contracting system would be suspended after the last extension.
In the following months, and under the weight of oversized waiting lists for surgery, the Moreno Executive dismissed Guzmán, the main person responsible for those contracts, and his successor Diego Vargas at the head of the SAS. In December 2023, the current manager, Valle García, was appointed, who immediately resumed contract contracts with private clinics, using that emergency file, whose legal basis was a Royal Government Decree repealed in May 2021.
24 hours between the complaint and the accusation
This explains why Judge Javier Santamaría, who investigates the contracts by hand, has summoned her as under investigation 24 hours after the socialists filed a complaint against her last Monday. García once again signed spending extensions in contract awards after Moreno’s Executive announced his suspension to return to an open contracting procedure, with advertising and competitive competition, which was never activated.
When he signed the last addendums to which this newspaper has had access, on July 18, just a month ago the PSOE had filed a complaint in the Court of Instruction 13 of Seville for a possible crime of prevarication and embezzlement in the award of 243 million euros in contract contracts between 2021 and 2023.
It was June 20, although the judge would not open proceedings until October. But the socialists had spent a year threatening to denounce and accuse the Board of corruption, and yet, the SAS reactivated those hit-and-run contracts under suspicion without fear of ending up in court.
Last Monday, the socialists expanded the complaint filed in court to point out that the current manager of the SAS is responsible for perpetuating a contract hiring procedure that they consider illegal, and about which the judge and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office perceive, at least, indications. of prevarication. 24 hours later, the magistrate charged García and his predecessors in office, Guzmán and Vargas, causing a shock in the San Telmo Palace, headquarters of the Board.
The judicial case, to which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has joined, investigates a “parallel system” of contracting by hand with private clinics that covers a period of four years, from 2020, the year of the pandemic, to the present. In a recent ruling, both the prosecutor and the judge have required a mountain of documentation from the Andalusian Government and the internal and external inspection bodies.
Among other things, they have requested the SAS expenditure files between 2020 and 2024, the audit reports of the General Intervention of the Junta de Andalucía and, in particular, of the Ministry of Health for 2021, 2022 and 2023, the reports and resolutions of the Secretariat of the State Public Advisory Board, which in 2021 ordered administrations to stop regularly using emergency; the report of the Chamber of Accounts related to the year 2020, and any documentation related to the investigation in the hands of the Court of Accounts.
The judge has summoned the last three SAS managers “any day in November” to officially inform them that they are being investigated for prevarication. The PSOE also accuses them of crimes of embezzlement, falsification of documents and membership in a criminal organization, punishable by eight years in prison, and leaves the door open to the involvement of “highest levels of the Government.”
Asisa, with 60% of contracts under contract in 2024
Among the private hospitals that benefited from emergency contracts between 2021 and 2023 and that have once again received awards from the SAS this year, those of the HLA Group (Asisa) stand out, which receives 17.7 million euros in five addendums, more than 60% of the 28 million distributed in this last batch.
The four Asisa hospitals that benefited are the HLA Mediterráneo, in Almería, which received 4.4 million in an addendum in January, and another 4.95 million in July; the Santa Isabel Clinic, in Seville, with 8.1 million; and Comprehensive Diagnostic Medical Centers for the La Inmaculada hospital, in La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), for 290,000 euros.
The PSOE highlights in its complaint that the former manager of the SAS and person responsible for the original emergency file from which all subsequent spending increases emanate, Miguel Ángel Guzmán, signed for the company Asisa three months after his resignation as Deputy Minister of Health, in December. of 2023.
During his tenure as manager of the SAS, he signed contracts with Asisa worth 44 million euros. The Andalusian Government interceded to stop his jump to the private sector, arguing that it violated the Law of Incompatibility of Senior Officials, but for a few months.
The other spending extensions to the 2021 emergency contract have benefited the Doctor Antonio López Hospital, in Cádiz, for 2.25 million; the San Juan de Dios, in Seville, for 3.27 million; the Viamed of Bahía de Cádiz, for 3.9 million; the Dos Hermanas Radiological Center, in Seville, for 143,271 euros; and Comprehensive Diagnostic Medical Centers of Cádiz, for 565,000 euros.
This newspaper has asked the Andalusian Government why it continues to use emergency contracts, extending a file from 2021, a year after announcing its cancellation, and despite there being a judicial investigation underway, but they have declined to respond.
The Board clings to two reports from the SAS Legal Office that endorse these contracts, even after the exceptional legal framework of the pandemic was repealed, because they understand that its effects continued to have an impact on the system. Sources around Moreno assure that the accusation of his three senior officials by the judge is “what is usual and reasonable in a rule of law so that the people reported can defend their innocence.”
“The SAS and the SAS manager have not yet received any notification,” they emphasize, and reduce the ongoing accusation to “mere ordinary paperwork in the judicial procedure.” “The SAS considers that all contracts are within the law, it has the utmost respect for Justice and will collaborate in everything necessary with diligence and transparency, as it has done until now,” he concludes.
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