The new team at the head of Basque Health, led by councilor Alberto Martínez, continues to rethink the initiatives of the previous one, led by Gotzone Sagardui. In recent days, the paralysis of the project to transform the former EiTB headquarters in Iurreta into a privately managed logistics platform for Osakidetza, a million-dollar infrastructure, has been confirmed, and it has also been decided not to subcontract the management of the Service. plus social media. Basque Health. In the first case, the majority of unions had submitted appeals and in the second, LAB had also done so.
The first project was presented by the previous government in the home stretch of the legislature as an investment of 30 million euros which was to be operational in 2026. to enable “optimization of the acquisition and distribution of health and non-health supplies to the entire network of hospitals and health centers in Osakidetza”. As “advantages”, the Sagardui team announced that the purchasing policy was going to be “optimized” and “minimize the administrative, bureaucratic and logistical tasks of health professionals related to equipment management”, which, apparently, would “result in the improvement of health services”.
The unions have presented an appeal to the Administrative Body of Contractual Resources (OARC) to put an end to this new attempt at what they consider to be a “privatization” of the capacities of the public health system and have also filed a complaint before the courts, because it was unsuccessful on the administrative level. “This means the loss of jobs among the current workforce,” argued LAB when announcing the Iurreta project. He added that a policy of “dismantling” Osakidetza was underway and stressed that the network has “24 warehouses” with staff who could “normally” take on the tasks of the new centralized center.
Sources from Martínez’s team confirmed to this newspaper that it was decided to put the Iurreta project on “hold” and to begin “reflection” on the type of project that would be best. The LAB union also reported having received the same message. They are grateful that the Administration has been “permeable” to their demands but recall that this change would not have been possible without the “mobilizations”. LAB, in recent years, has also stopped other resource outsourcing. In July, they estimated the total number of blocked contracts at 163 million. “A good job has been done. The fight is worth it. In this conflict we have proven that mobilizations and awareness raising against privatization have worked,” says Jesús Oñate.
Concerning social networks, LAB once again contacted the OARC. This summer, this body issued a resolution ending the outsourcing of Osakidetza’s communications to a private company, a practice that has been carried out for years. From now on, there will be no more attempts to tender for this service and it will be done with our own resources, but while the contract was under review, a direct award was made official (which was possible because it was less than 15,000 euros) with the company Socialitas, owned by businessman Igor San Román. He received 14,200 euros plus VAT.
It turns out that Socialitas had already worked previously for Health and also received other direct contracts from other departments of the Basque Government such as that of Security or Culture, where, year after year, it is responsible for working on promoting the official status of national teams. Basque sports without competition. This company has its headquarters in the center of Vitoria – in the old Príncipe or Guridi Theater – but, despite managing communication on the web and social networks, it does not have any of these supports. San Román, who is director of the Athletic Club, denies having benefited from preferential treatment or being linked to the PNV and explains that the anomaly of not having its own networks is explained by the fatigue that it generates with the tone of conversation in media such as X.
The recent diagnosis on the state of Osakidetza, coming from the table exploring a health pact, also alludes to the question of privatizations. At the request of certain agents participating in the forum, it was agreed to include a mention of this problem. There are three points about this. First: “The exercise of positions of responsibility in the public health system and a simultaneous professional activity in the private sphere could involve a conflict of interest which requires careful analysis. » Second: “In recent years, coordination has increased. Likewise, during the decade 2013-2023, private individual insurance increased by approximately 50%. And third: the analysis of outsourced ambulances has been rectified to eliminate the responsibility that was attributed to service problems to workers and to expressly point out the shortcomings of the project manager, Grup La Pau.
