Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

(…) Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities, and 13 held regional elections this May. This electioneering saw an increase in scaremongering about the health service in the mostly conservative media. After the conservative People’s Party—the national opposition until the weekend—won a crushing victory, the number of media reports about the health system’s unsustainability rose strikingly Budget cuts have been particularly pronounced in Catalonia,8 which is governed by Catalan nationalist party Convergence and Union (CiU). There is no doubt that the financial crisis is affecting the health service.9 But historical inefficiencies are also a real problem. For example, the health service owes an alleged €15bn to suppliers, including €5.5bn for drugs, €4.7bn for health technology, and €0.4bn to pharmacies, and payment delays are more than 400 days on average. “The argument of the debt crisis is being used to introduce important changes in the health service, mainly the introduction of private management of public services,” says Javier Rey del Castillo, who is responsible for health at the think tank Fundación Alternativas. Indeed, privatisation has grown almost exponentially over the past decade, mainly in regions administered by the People’s Party.10 For its part, CiU has a project to increase private capital input in Catalonia,11 which has extensive links to the private sector for historical reasons (…)