The Junta of Andalusia, governed by the PP, has avoided this Tuesday defending the work of the two directors of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) between 2019 and 2023, Miguel Ángel Guzmán and Diego Vargas, due to the judicial case in which an alleged abuse of emergency contracts is being investigated. The spokesperson for the regional Executive, Carolina España, has avoided protecting Guzmán and Vargas but has done so with the current head of the SAS, Valle García Sánchez, despite the fact that
Does the current manager’s closed defense extend to her predecessors? Spain has been asked. “I defend a person who is now part of the Board, the others are no longer part. I don’t put my hand [en el fuego]I am telling you that we are surprised by the PSOE’s complaint against a professional civil servant. [García Sánchez] which is not affiliated with the PP. We are surprised by her, a woman who does her job very well,” the Board spokesperson responded without mentioning Guzmán and Vargas.
The court has charged García Sánchez for the addendums to extensions of voluntary awards signed last January and July, and she appeared in the case yesterday Monday with her own lawyer and not the Board’s, according to Spain. After the Government Council this Tuesday, the origin of the case and has tried to reduce the responsibility of the current manager in the case, which arose after a complaint from the Andalusian PSOE, which is represented as a popular accusation. “The addendum is not an addendum itself, nor an emergency contract, nor an extension of the term, nor the provision of new emergency services, which ended in May 2023 (…) It is only paying for what has been done, the services provided during emergency contracts,” he insisted. At the moment, the Andalusian Board is considering appearing in the court case, but has not yet made a decision.
The court and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office are investigating the alleged abuse of emergency contracts by the Board between 2020 and 2023, when the legal coverage that protected these hand-picked awards had already declined due to the emergency of the covid pandemic. Carolina España has repeated that in 2024 the SAS has not signed emergency contracts, but has only paid supplementary payments for previous contracts, according to the latest report of the Board’s Intervention from last July. “There is no need to communicate precautionary measures, there is no action report [un código rojo de la Intervención General] and there is no impairment of public funds or infringement of good governance,” he added.
A month ago, in line with the strategy proposed by Spain this Tuesday, under its command, Guzmán and Vargas. “I am sure that the people who managed those moments did so out of an extraordinary need,” she said.
A week ago the Andalusian socialists expanded the complaint, filed in June, to request the accusation of the current manager of the SAS for the signing of addendums to the express contracts last January and July. The first of them was for 2.2 million for oncological procedures for the company Hospital Doctor Antonio López Cano, extended up to four times, between 2021 and 2023. The second addendum, signed last July, was for an emergency contract signed by 4.4 million in 2020 with the HLA Mediterráneo Hospital of Almería for medical, surgical, diagnostic and therapeutic healthcare for SAS users.
García Sánchez, former manager of the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba since 1997, was promoted to manager on December 27, 2023, when Guzmán and Vargas, the former then vice president of the Ministry of Health and the latter at the head of the SAS since 2022, resigned.
