Until the summer of 2023, it had a Pain Unit. An anesthetist, a rheumatologist or traumatologist, a nurse and an auxiliary technician came to the “operating room” – a small room where outpatient surgeries were performed – to provide care to a handful of patients who needed treatment for chronic pain. Many were postoperative people who needed injections or nerve blocks. Until one day there were no more appointments scheduled on the agenda, the anesthetist did not come and the room was dedicated exclusively to the usual small surgical interventions. For two years, there was no more talk about the Infanta Leonor Pain Unit, but a few days ago the news broke that the Community of Madrid is searching.
The Ministry of Health has put out to tender the contracting file for the “health care service in the treatment of chronic pain for patients at the Infanta Leonor University Hospital.” “Due to the lack of both material resources and specialized personnel to carry out the activities that make up the service that is the subject of the contract, it is necessary to resort to external contracting,” says Health in one of the tender documents, signed by the hospital manager, María del Carmen Pantoja.
“This strategy is a clear example of the deterioration that the PP regional government is inflicting on public health to justify its progressive privatization,” CC OO denounced in a statement this Wednesday. “With this, they further thin the workforce of public employees in the sector and fatten the income statements of some private health groups with million-dollar injections of money from all Madrid residents.”
The Infanta Leonor Pain Unit was not a service that required large resources, neither material nor human. In fact, only three or four professionals were needed and appointments, while it worked, were only open for one day a week, so they did not have an overflowing flow of patients. “We did not have long waiting lists. The patient was treated by the specialist who referred him to the Pain Unit and received the treatment in the same place. I do not understand what resources the Ministry of Health is referring to,” says Maina Núñez, delegate at the Infanta Leonor of CC OO, a union that has denounced this new “privatization” operation of Madrid’s public health system.
Both the workers of the Infanta Leonor and the opposition parties in the Madrid Assembly are struck by the fact that Health hides behind the fact that it does not have human and material resources to reestablish a Pain Unit as small as the one in this hospital. It is offered for a relatively low amount, 87,757.31 euros for execution in 12 months, although it is recognized that this amount can reach more than 450,000 euros in case of modifications and extensions (up to 60 months).
Carlos Moreno, PSOE deputy in the Madrid Assembly, says that it is a “scandal” that the Ministry of Health does not have resources for a Pain Unit that requires about five professionals. “It is very worrying that a public hospital is not capable of maintaining a minimum staff,” says Moreno. “As of September 30, the Ministry has a balance of 14 million euros free of charge that could be used in the Pain Unit of the Infanta Leonor hospital,” he adds.
A spokesperson for the regional Ministry of Health responds that “to guarantee healthcare to its users in this area, with optimal quality, a tender has been put out to outsource the service.” He points out that it is a measure that is within “the strictest legality” and that “it is not a unique case either in this hospital or in any other Madrid public health complex, nor in relation to other services that do not fall within the service portfolios of certain hospitals.”
The Infanta Leonor hospital is a public hospital that operates under a mixed model, in which clinical services are provided by personnel hired by the regional Administration, while other services such as the cafeteria, security or laundry are provided by a private company. The outsourcing of the Pain Unit does not mean that the private company that provides all these services is going to assume them, but rather that the Department looks for someone who can meet those needs outside the center.
Marta Carmona, representative of Más Madrid, does not doubt that the Quirón Group is the beneficiary of this new tender. “Quirón can apply for all contracts because it is doped with public money from the Community of Madrid and that is why it can present very juicy proposals compared to other companies,” he points out.
The deputy relates the model of these privatizations to that of the Torrejón hospital, whose manager, , asked the heads of the center to stop caring for the patients who earn less money. “We must keep in mind that patients treated in a Pain Unit are expensive patients, because many things have to be tried before they find improvement,” he explains. “If they go to the private one, they will not be worried about finding the best treatment, but rather the one that is cheapest.”
According to CC OO, some of the Infanta Leonor patients who needed these treatments were cared for by a traumatologist and two nurses at the Vicente Soldevilla health center, in Puente de Vallecas. However, since they do not have an outpatient surgery area in which the procedures could be carried out, many were sent to the Pain Unit of the Gregorio Marañón hospital. “The problem is that Marañón denies us patients on many occasions because they are saturated,” says Maina Núñez, CC OO delegate at Infanta Leonor.
Now, the Community of Madrid seeks to outsource this service, or what is the same, privatize it. “It is not feasible for the Hospital to develop an adequate service, due to the limitation of its own resources, the complexity and specificity of the treatments since it lacks the resources to do so, both human and material, due to the level of complexity and specialization necessary to be able to carry out these treatments in the required terms and help the recovery of patients who need it,” they reaffirm in one of the tender reports.
