A court is already investigating Ribera’s management of the Torrejón Hospital after the Alcalá de Henares Prosecutor’s Office has unified the complaints for possible irregularities “which would consist of various manipulations with the aim of increasing economic performance to the detriment of the adequate provision of health services to citizens,” according to a document to which EL PAÍS has had access.
The investigation responds to four complaints filed following the one in which the CEO of the Ribera Group (company that manages this public hospital) was heard giving instructions to its managers to increase waiting lists to increase the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of the company.
Given that the Torrejón de Ardoz court has already opened a case on the case, the Prosecutor’s Office archives its proceedings after estimating that “the reported facts could constitute a crime of prevarication”, included in articles 404 et seq. of the Penal Code.
The complaints mentioned by the public ministry come from the PSOE, from the lawyer Francisco Javier Flores Vaquerizo, from the and from an anonymous source, who informed the Prosecutor’s Office of the facts published by EL PAÍS as of December 3.
In the recordings you can hear how Pablo Gallart gives instructions to a group of direct members of the Ribera Group and the Torrejón Hospital to increase the company’s EBITDA to “four or five million”, justifying it due to the lack of profitability of the project.
He tells his subordinates the need to increase waiting lists, keeping them below the average for public hospitals, and review which activity is “contributory to EBITDA” (profitable). He asks his commanders to “be imaginative” to achieve the goal, in his words, of “saving Torrejón.”
After the meeting, there were written instructions not to accept “non-capita” patients (that is, those to whom the hospital did not belong) for peritoneal dialysis and , according to emails to which this newspaper had access.
After the EL PAÍS publications, the Ribera group removed Gallart from the management of the hospital, although they kept him in position within the company and assured that they were audios out of context. This newspaper has published the .
