He Ministry of Social Rights is looking for a private company to provide medical services to its more than 530 employees. Specifically, the organization led by the communist Pablo Bustinduy allocates 130,000 euros to carry out – through private health organizations – medical examinations of its staff, in addition to gynecological and urological tests. A hiring that exposes the Minister of Add who, despite being a great defender of public health, leaves all these medical tests in the hands of private companies.
According to the tendered contract, the company chosen to provide these health activities to the 535 civil servants of the Ministry of Social Rights must have health personnel with the technical competence, training and accredited capacity to carry out the activity to be contracted. Likewise, it must have several centers, own or subsidized, in the municipality of Madrid, equipped with a technical team and the necessary equipment to develop the service.
Among the tasks to be carried out are medical examinations of workers already in post, as well as new recruits, in addition to the assessment of employees who report a disability – recognized or not – and employees who report their state of pregnancy or breastfeeding situation. in order to assess a possible risk situation due to pregnancy or breastfeeding. Likewise, it will be possible to carry out gynecological and urological examinations on all workers.
“Within a maximum period of one month, the winning company must complete a file in electronic format which will be provided by the General Sub-Directorate of the Inspection of Human Resources and Services of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030which will include, among other things, the following data: the list of public officials who have undergone a medical examination, the type of examination and the protocols applied, the date, gender, age, whether or not they are suitable for the position or require some adaptation of it,” reads the contractual document. It Ministry of Social Rights budgeted an expenditure of 130,000 euros to carry out all these medical checks for a maximum period of one year.
Although for the opinions of its workers Bustinduy He chose the private sector, in his statements he presents himself as a defender of the public. Last July, the minister of Yolanda Díaz’s party defended the “true meaning of Agenda 2030” by agreeing with the public health system. “What it really says is that we have the right to breathe clean air, to conserve biodiversity, to eradicate hunger and poverty, to have a public health system and universal education. […] This is a program that aims to make human rights effective.“, Bustinduy explained.
VAT on private insurance
Bustinduy himself was photographed a few days ago with the rest of Sumar’s ministers during the presentation of the proposals of Yolanda Díaz’s party for the next General State Budgets (PGE). “Let’s go making public health dignified and the opportunity is now,” said the second vice-president of the Government before putting on the table the demands that Sumar will transmit to the PSOE.
Most of these are already known, such as the strengthening of primary care, the integration of contact lenses, glasses and dentists into the SNS service portfolio, as well as the also well-known taxation of VAT on private health insurance. Something that “is right” for Mónica García, but that the government, through its vice president and finance minister, ruled it out more than a year ago, when the issue was put on the table by Yolanda García.
