Privatizing the Madrid healthcare system has been a failure, and similar projects across Spain are frozen as a result. Various factors caused the project to falter from the start, and serious design flaws put the nail in the coffin.
Sensibly, the head of this system, Javier Fernández Lasquety, has handed in his resignation after failing to explain why a public-private system was beneficial and what savings he could achieve. Even a mistake in the bidding process led the courts to suspend the project for eight months. Their decision has become an insurmountable barrier, which creates a lot of doubt for the companies bidding on the project. The Madrid region has not fashioned a response, and it will have to return the money it has invested so far. Did Madrid leaders really believe in this project?
After tasking Esperanza Aguirre with opening new hospitals before the last regional government elections and giving him a staff, which is a thing for private companies to do ? his successors, founded a hybrid model that blended public and private management. The model teemed with mistakes and lacked transparency, which from the start compromised what the public and healthcare workers wanted.
Talks about the possible merits of a public-private model are pointless now. Politicians did what they could to win votes at the ballot box, and they got what they wanted at their voter expense.
