The Community of Madrid owes to the four public hospitals of private management of the Quirónsalud group in the region a total of 455 million euros, of the World Health Giant Fresenius, owner since 2017 of the network of Quirón health centers in Spain. That makes the Autonomous Administration the second main debtor of the conglomerate with 13% of the total debt, although the regional government has been rejecting for a long time to specify how much what they owed according to their calculations is being carried out, with the argument that the pending liquidations are part of “a living process” in which the two parties discuss “euro to euro”. What is certain is that Madrid’s debt with Fresenius has been reduced at full speed since Isabel Díaz Ayuso came to power, according to the balance known on Wednesday: of the 1,004 million with which 2019 was closed at 455 with which it ended 2024, its lowest level since the Spanish company is part of the German (2017).
The relationship between the Community of Madrid and Quirón is the subject of a triple controversy. On the one hand, for being a paradigmatic example of public-private collaboration in health through the Jiménez Díaz Foundation of the capital, the Rey Juan Carlos de Móstoles hospital, the Infanta Elena de Valdemoro and the General Hospital of Villalba. On the other, because the conglomerate receives hundreds of millions from the Madrid government through Quirónsalud, and has been, through chirón -prevention, the main client of the regional president’s boyfriend, Alberto González Amador, judicially investigated by his businesses during the pandemic ,. And, finally, because the opacity of a system in which payments for the provision of services in public private management hospitals take years to occur, and are subject to constant administrative and judicial lawsuits, causes opposition complaints about the difficulty in obtaining spending and investment data by the Community of Madrid.
However, Fresenius, as a quoted company, must annually audit all its accounts and inform the conclusions of its shareholders. In the case of 2024, the company includes a total of 3,500 million euros in the “Provisions for expected credit losses”, in which those items are collected whose collection accumulates delays or is considered at risk. Of that amount, 13% —455 million – corresponds to last year’s closure to “the Public Health Authority of the Madrid region”, according to the document of the last year, a debt that accompanies the group since 2017, when it acquired Quirón.
Thus, Fresenius then noted that Madrid owed him 558 million in relation to the use of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation of the capital, the Rey Juan Carlos de Móstoles hospital, the Infanta Elena de Valdemoro and the General Hospital of Villalba. In 2017, the data reached 785. Between 2019 and 2021, it exceeded the 1,000 million barrier ,. In 2022, it was 701. In 2023, of 918. And now it stays below 500. The differential factor is that the Ayuso government has decided to make an unprecedented effort to reduce the debt with Quirón, starring in a kind of game of the cat and the mouse: on the one hand the figure grows every year (since the services are continued) and on the other it is tried to reduce it (by increasing it (increasing the frequency of the payments).
“The thesis was simple: these people have been owed for a long time and this situation must already be put in order,” summarized a pending source since 2015 with public hospitals concessioned to different private managers. “There was the common sense of the boss [por Ayuso] and of the vice president [Enrique] Ossorio, with the idea of taking that off, because then the sentences against, which include interest interests, and it is much more what it has to pay. ”
The effect of that decision was notable ,. “As for the amount of the provision relating to the liquidations pending previous exercises of the agreements and concerts with the hospitals managed indirectly, its amount has decreased considerably at the end of 2022,” said the supervisory entity, to immediately detail that there was a balance of 763 million at the end of the year.
These appreciations are the best summary that upon arrival of Ayuso to power, in August 2019, it was a radical change in the management of the debt that Madrid maintains with the hospital giant. And even more since the baroness managed to govern alone, undoing its coalition with citizens, from 2021. The acceleration of the payments that began in 2022, shortly after the Government’s general intervener was dismissed, have followed a rhythm sustained since then.
However, at the end of 2023, the pending invoices remained a true Damocles sword for the Regional Administration, which entered 2024 with more than 1.2 billion euros provided in their accounts to deal with backward payments already pending judicial conflicts with the five public hospitals of private management – four of Quirónsalud and one of the group Ribera Salud – and the military Ministry of Defense. This is revealed, which details that the figure grew with respect to 2022 (1,011 million), mainly because the endowment to cover judicial procedures (from 248 million in 2022 to 315 in 2023) increased.
That is why payments continue at a good pace today. This same January, for example, it was learned that the community had taken advantage of the last Government Council of 2024, held on December 26, to approve the payment of 34.8 million euros to the four public private management hospitals belonging to the extraordinary expenses that the.
This is recorded in official documentation consulted by the country, which is detailed that the Jiménez Díaz Foundation saw its request to be compensated with 17,878,850 euros; the King Juan Carlos de Móstoles hospital, with 7,530,415 euros; the General of Villalba, with 5,368,406 euros; and the Infanta Elena de Valdemoro, with 4,053,922 euros. A bet that has allowed Madrid to reduce its debt to this group at full speed.
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