“If we detected any type of irregularity, we would apply forcefulness and take some type of measure.” The Minister of Health of the Valencian Government, Marciano Gómez, spoke in these terms recently when asked about the continuity of Ribera Salud as the management company of the Vinalopó hospital, after the scandal unleashed by the email of a senior official of the company uncovered by elDiario.es in which the staff is urged to reuse single catheters to save.
Gómez did not specify if forceful measures mean the possible termination of the contract, a measure demanded by both the PSPV and Compromís, which are going to take the case before the Prosecutor’s Office, in addition to the Platform for the Reversion of Vinalopó, which held a protest this Thursday at the doors of the Alicante hospital center. However, in view of the conditions of the contract that the Valencian Government extended in May of last year until May 31, 2030, it would not be far from simple and according to various sources consulted, it could give rise to a judicial war with million-dollar claims by the company.
And, according to the document formalizing the five-year extension, the administration undertakes to pay the company a total of 826.7 million euros initially. Discounting the 82.6 million planned for 2025, the Valencian administration would still have to pay Ribera Salud 744.1 million to the company for the remaining four years of the concession.
The reason for this more than likely dispute is that none of the clauses that appear in the specifications as a reason for terminating the concession speak of possible negligence. Neither does Royal Legislative Decree 2/2000, of June 16, which approves the Public Administration Contracts Law, which governs the agreement.
In both cases, “reasons of general interest” appear as one of the possible reasons for termination. However, reliable sources explain that taking advantage of this point requires an exceptional situation that would imply a rigorous justification to avoid the aforementioned compensation.
The rest of the reasons established in the contract as causes for its termination are “failure to comply with the deadline for the start of the management of the public service by more than two months for reasons attributable to the contractor; failure to comply with the essential contractual obligations related to the provision of complementary non-health services; failure to comply with the essential obligations of preparing the Hospital Construction Project and its execution; abandonment will be presumed when the concessionaire, without justified cause, stops providing the service for more than 48 hours in a row, by withdrawal of the staff and absolute neglect of the service; abandonment implies the seizure of the service by the Administration; the obstruction by the concessionaire of the Administration’s exercise of the powers of control and inspection; the delay of more than six months by the Administration;
The contract also provides that “the Contracting Body may agree to the total or partial rescue of the concession in the event that the services so require due to public interest.”
On the other hand, section 17, which establishes the contractor’s obligations, warns that he must “compensate for damages caused to third parties as a result of the operations required to carry out the service, except when the damage is caused by causes attributable to the Administration.”
For its part, the Ministry of Health, when asked by this editorial team about whether the case of the catheters, if their illegal reuse is proven, would be grounds for termination of the contract, have referred to what is established in the clauses and the regulations on which it is based.
Health Inspection and response from Ribera Salud
As this newspaper has reported, on October 6, 2025, the head of audit of the company Ribera Salud sent an email to the heads of the public hospital it manages in the Madrid town of Torrejón with a very clear order: they had to reuse electrophysiology catheters, a single-use material, to save money. And as soon as possible, as they were already doing in the Vinalopó public hospital, which serves the Elche-Crevillent (Alicante) health area, also managed by Ribera Salud. It is the last hospital center that remains under concession in the Valencian Community after the reversal carried out by the Botànic.
elDiario.es raised the situation revealed in the aforementioned email to the Ministry of Health last Thursday, January 15, to try to find out the scope of these practices at the Vinalopó hospital, in the Elche-Crevillent area, and, alerted by the seriousness of the situation, it sent a surprise inspection at eight in the morning on Friday. “The inspectors have visited several departments of the center and have not detected that material of this type is being reused today,” sources from the Ministry say. This does not mean that it was not done at the time the internal email was sent, which is very clear about the practices that were promoted at the center.
Sources from Ribera Salud alleged, when asked by elDiario.es, that the inspection by the Ministry of Health “has shown that consumable material is not re-sterilized.” “At the Vinalopó University Hospital, single-use materials are not being reused,” they said. Alerted that there is an internal email that contradicts their statement, the same company sources have stated: “I can show you what the official Health inspection says today. What the document that you have says, I don’t know if it could have been manipulated. It already happened with the issue of the audios.”
The Torrejón case, also prosecuted
On the Madrid side, a court in the Madrid town of Torrejón de Ardoz decided a week ago to archive the complaint that Podemos filed against the managers of Ribera Salud and the Torrejón de Ardoz Hospital as a result of the conversations revealed by The Country in which its managers ordered to prioritize more economically profitable medical interventions. A decision that clashes with the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office, which, as El Plural announced, considers that there is prevarication and has forwarded more complaints filed by the PSOE, the lawyer Javier Flores and an association that defends public health.
The Community of Madrid has insisted this Wednesday, after the publication of the email in elDiario.es, that “the inspection, through audits, has flatly denied that absolutely nothing has been reused in that hospital,” defended Miguel Ángel García Martín, spokesperson for the Ayuso Government after the Government Council. “There has been a trace of all the material that has entered and of all the material that has been used, in the operating rooms and there is no type of reuse. Therefore it is flatly false and citizens can be very calm,” he pointed out, despite the fact that the email, dated October 6, gives instructions to sterilize catheters “as soon as possible.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
