which assists more than 300,000 residents of Puente and Villa de Vallecas, the provision of medical services through private companies is advancing strongly in 2026. After the announcement at the beginning of the year of a contract to perform digestive tests, such as colonoscopies and panendoscopies, valued at 105,120 euros for one year, the award of the Pain Unit to the Hospitalarias Foundation, of a religious nature, for more than 80,000 euros was announced. euros. Now it’s the turn of open MRIs. The Madrid Health Service has published a new call for tenders for an entity to take charge of these diagnostic examinations, both for hospital patients and for the centers attached to it.
For this reason, residents will gather at the doors of the Assembly’s first plenary session of the year, this Thursday at 5:30 p.m., convened by the Platforms for Public Health of Puente and Villa de Vallecas. “” is the slogan of the protest. The contract to carry out open magnetic resonance imaging will have a duration of 12 months and a base budget of 36,300 euros, according to the specifications published on the Public Procurement Portal of the Community of Madrid.
Unlike the traditional closed test that is performed inside a tunnel, this allows more space and visibility, which is why it may be advisable for children or overweight people, although in some cases the image quality decreases. “Vallecas only has closed MRIs, it is safer to resort to open ones rather than sedating a claustrophobic patient,” the Ministry of Health points out after clarifying that it is a temporary solution, until the necessary infrastructure to carry out this test is installed in , located about 30 kilometers by car from Infanta Leonor.
“The outsourcing mantra that the opposition is agitating is radically false, as is the famous dismantling,” they continue. They defend that the Community of Madrid carries out this type of contracts in a “punctual” manner and they attribute this to the lack of professionals. “The Ministry of Health lacks a human resources plan and does not carry out non-EU approvals,” they reproach. In his opinion, they comply with the demands of the citizens, “obedient to provide the service and reduce the costs.”
The Infanta Leonor Hospital, inaugurated in 2008, belongs to a scheme created by Esperanza Aguirre. Hospital de Vallecas SA is the concessionaire company linked to the health center that has been linked to the management of non-clinical services and economic aspects. He provided the financing to build it and then received payments from the Administration. In 2025, the Community of Madrid agreed to pay him 31.2 million with the responsibility of carrying out new works such as the renovation of the Psychiatry area or the locker rooms. But the infrastructure to do open MRIs was not contemplated, which now angers the neighbors.
The Platforms for Public Health of Puente and Villa de Vallecas demand from the Ministry of Health the immediate reversal of these health policies and an urgent reinforcement of public resources in both districts. They thus censure “the outsourcing of an essential service for patients with chronic pathologies that require continuous monitoring”, such as the Pain Unit, and warn that it represents a deterioration in the continuity of care by moving a service outside the hospital that, in their opinion, should be fully integrated into clinical activity.
They also denounce that at the Infanta Leonor Hospital simple, including those requested urgently, and there is no possibility for the family doctor to request a report in case of doubt. This is stated in the latest document from the Puente de Vallecas Health Board and the Network of Primary Care Professionals of this district, presented this Tuesday.
Chest x-rays are of particular concern because they are tests of great clinical importance that entail greater difficulty in interpretation, and in which relevant pathologies accumulate such as primary neoplasms, metastases, chronic lung diseases or pleural pathologies.
“They also refer to private centers requested by Primary Care doctors from the district’s health centers,” denounces María José García, representative of the Platform for Public Health of Villa de Vallecas. “Far from reinforcing public resources, the outsourcing of essential hospital services deepens the deterioration of care suffered by Madrid’s public health system, especially in the southern and eastern districts, the territories of the region that have a greater demand for care,” lament the entities calling for the protest.
Requests for ultrasounds through normal means have a delay that exceeds six months in most cases, according to the report from the Puente de Vallecas Health Board and the Network of Primary Care Professionals of this district, which ensures that while in some care directions, such as the South or the West, the majority are done through the radiology service of the reference hospital, in others such as the Southeast they are referred to private or subsidized centers.
María José García feels abandoned: “We go out into the streets because we can’t take it anymore and we are not going to keep quiet. We are not going to tolerate more business being done with our health.”
