The Superior Prosecutor’s Office of the Valencian Community has shelved the complaint filed in March by the Secretary of Organization of the PSPV-PSOE, Vicent Mascarell, and the socialist deputy Yaissel Sánchez against the Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, for preferential treatment towards the private health firm Ribera Salud.
Read more Two dead after scaffolding collapses at a construction site on a street in Benidorm
The Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed this Wednesday the shelving of the criminal investigation proceedings as no evidence of crimes was detected, “without prejudice to its possible redirection through judicial channels,” add fiscal sources, cited by Efe. The shelving of the complaint was reported by the newspaper Las Provincias.
The PSPV denounced both the minister and his sister-in-law, financial director of Ribera Salud, and his brother, manager of a clinic in Benidorm, acquired by this group, for alleged crimes of prohibited negotiations, disloyal administration, business corruption, prevarication, crimes against public health, embezzlement, and omission of the duty of supervision.
The core of the socialists’ accusation was an alleged preferential treatment by Gómez towards Ribera Salud, as well as alleged irregularities by this firm in the handling of single-use sanitary material. As the PSPV stated in its complaint – initially filed with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office but referred to the TSJCV due to Marciano Gómez’s parliamentary immunity – “the current Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, was one of the ideologues of the Alzira model” for the privatization of the healthcare system.
“Once dismissed from all his public positions – in previous legislatures – in January 2005, Marciano Gómez would establish two consulting firms called Iniciativas Médicas y Farmacéuticas Sl and Iniciativas y Marketing Sociosanitario SL, both implicated in the Osvaldos case and the diversion of funds from General Hospital contracts,” the document added.
The PSPV also held Gómez responsible for paralyzing the process of reversing healthcare concessions initiated in 2015 by the Botànic Government. Regarding the concession of the Elx-Crevillent department, the PSPV stated in its complaint that “far from reversing it, the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, and his Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, decided to continue it through a very advantageous extension for the Ribera Salud Group, despite the existence of previous reports that evidenced the structural deficiencies of this type of indirect management, the lack of budgetary efficiency and control, and after the rules for reversal had been communicated a year earlier.”
Read more Say goodbye to floor marks with this spray mop that traps all the dust
The socialists attribute “an economic damage of 40 million euros” to this decision, in allusion to the increase in Ribera Salud’s profits in this department. “As financial director of Ribera Salud, the minister’s sister-in-law has been in charge of negotiations with the Department of Health regarding the settlement of the concession with the Administration. The conflict of interest seriously compromises the principles of impartiality, independence, and integrity of the procedures that must govern the administration,” always according to the PSPV’s complaint. Furthermore, “the direct family link between the head of the Ministry and the then financial director of the concessionaire could have contributed to increasing the amount of economic settlements that the Administration ends up paying to the concessionaire, especially in the 2023 period.”
Following the complaint and some statements about the minister’s personal interests by Diana Morant, general secretary of the PSPV-PSOE, Gómez filed a lawsuit against the Minister of Science. On April 2, the socialist leader was summoned to the conciliation hearing but did not attend. at the City of Justice. She had the option to stop the process if she repented and apologized.
The PSPV also filed a complaint in February with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Alicante for alleged irregularities in the management of the Vinalopó University Hospital, a public health center managed by the company Elche Crevillent Salud S.A., belonging to the Ribera Salud group. The object of the complaint is the alleged reuse of single-use catheters up to ten times, a practice expressly prohibited by European and Spanish regulations due to the risk it poses to patient safety. Health has denied this use.
The complaint was initially directed against the hospital manager, located in Elche, Rafael Carrasco Moreno, and against all those individuals for several crimes.
Read more Swine fever spreads, and 19 municipalities in Barcelona now prohibit access to rural areas
