The Government of Cantabria is going to put the future Scientific and Technological Health Park in private hands, which will be built on the site left by the demolition of the health complex of the old Cantabria Residence, a program that is increasingly outlined, to the point that a foundation will be established to run it, which will be controlled by the main investor, as reported by the Minister of Health, César Pascual (PP), in a recent parliamentary appearance.
Asked about the role that the Marqués de Valdecilla Foundation will play in the future of the Park, Pascual has not only rejected its control of the complex but has announced the creation of an ‘ad hoc’, private foundation, whose board of trustees responds to the interests of the main investor or investors. The counselor has not gone further, except to say that the Marqués de Valdecilla Foundation has powers that go beyond it, including some that are inappropriate, not to mention that its public nature is not what was intended for the Health Science and Technology Park. that the autonomous Executive of the PP intends to promote. Thus, it has reflected that the private investor who builds it will direct the newly created foundation, where institutions such as the Government or the University will have a presence, but not a majority.
“The creation of an ‘ad hoc’ foundation to manage a park of research and development structures does not necessarily have to correspond to a public administration. The proposal we are carrying out is that the Board of Trustees be made up of founding trustees, mostly private, who contribute a budget, therefore it is a private foundation, not a public one… in the hands of whoever provides the money for the foundation and in the hands of whoever “it puts the investments in,” Pascual defended in the speakers’ gallery of the old San Rafael Hospital, headquarters of the Parliament of Cantabria.
What will be the role of the Executive led by María José Sáenz de Buruaga in this approach? According to the counselor, “the Government will channel investments into that structure and, of course, it will have a presence, like the University of Cantabria, but it will not be limited to a classic foundation, with a Board of Trustees where all are general directors, which is a body of the Government and direct management of the Government. “We are proposing something else, something that gives it high flexibility.”
The proposal we are carrying out is that the Board of Trustees be made up of mostly private founding trustees who contribute a budget, therefore it is a private foundation, not a public one.
César Pascual (PP)
— Cantabria Health Advisor
The Health Minister does not like the profile that the Marqués de Valdecilla Foundation currently has, which he described as a “sack fund.” “It has more powers than the Autonomous Community,” he said ironically. They have put everything into it, even from what has no competition like the Tutelar Foundation. The one we need to manage the Science Park is not the Marqués de Valdecilla Foundation. We must accommodate founding partners who contribute capital for this project to go ahead, regardless of all the investments made by the Government of Cantabria for research and [aplicar] the Science Law”, he pointed out.
Hospital boom
The use of privatization, which is euphemistically known as public-private collaboration, is booming in Spain in the healthcare field. In fact, the construction ‘boom’ in Spain is no longer only in housing, but in private hospitals, in step with the increase in the taking out of insurance policies. The number of insured people in Spain has grown by 40% in the last decade (from 8.9 to 12.4 million) and large hospital groups are very interested in the construction and purchase of equipment. Although the Park that is to be built on the land of the Cantabria Residence in Santander, in front of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, will be a commitment to research, it has not been denied at any time that it has a healthcare or clinical component.
Currently, the Grupo Igualatorio private hospital in Mompía was acquired in 2021 by the insurer Axa España, for 49 million euros. Mompía is not the only private hospital in Cantabria. Other hospital care centers are Santa Clotilde and Mutua Montañesa.
The president of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga (PP), who already piloted the privatization of the non-health services of the Valdecilla Hospital when she was Minister of Health, is a firm defender of the public-private concept and fully supports the management of César Pascual . Recently, Buruaga announced that the Government would “finally” begin the demolition of the Cantabria Residence “after the summer.” “A historical milestone with no turning back,” he stressed in June of this year during his speech at the State Debate of the Autonomous Community.
For the development of the Health Science and Technology Park, a “strategic” project, the president announced that her Government already has “the perfectly defined roadmap,” starting with “the demolition of the old Residence and the annexed buildings.” “I announce that our forecast is to begin the demolition of the complex at the end of summer, with an approximate duration of 24 months and a budget of 17.5 million,” Buruaga said at that time.
Regarding the future project of the health complex, it has been progressing for months and “it is in the design phase” and, for this, work was being done “in three directions”: definition of the scientific project and its content for which an Advisory Council has been established external and independent and consultations have been carried out with national references”; the reorganization of spaces and the demolition of the old Residence and annex buildings; and the study of the legal figure for the governance of the project, “betting on public-private collaboration.” This figure is that of a private foundation. And the president added then: ”Business contacts have already been opened to attract national and international investment.”
From the PRC-PSOE to the PP
With the entry into the Government of Cantabria of the PP, a change was made to the policy of the previous bipartite PRC-PSOE Executive, which had commissioned a study to decide whether to renovate the current building or throw it down. For the PP, the alternative is not such, but rather it has opted directly for the demolition.
The previous Government of Cantabria of regionalists and socialists was not clear about what to do with the Residence building, a building loaded with asbestos and very expensive to renovate or demolish, but it did want to give a new use to its 38,000 square meters, owned by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
Before the 2023 elections, PRC and PSOE planned to invest 611,000 euros in studying and making a decision for the future and were willing to spend close to 65 million euros to give a new life, always within the scope of public health, to an exponent of health developmentism in the recent history of Cantabria.
Information about the future complex is dispensed in a dropper. The lack of transparency was the subject of a complaint by the Cantabrian builders, interested in the demolition works. In July, the Association of Builders and Developers of Cantabria denounced “lack of transparency” in the public contracting of the Government of Cantabria to demolish the Cantabria Residence and did not rule out going to court to defend the interests of the sector.
The Board of Directors of the ACP expressed its displeasure at the “surprise” announcement of the “imminent” start of the demolition work on the building, through a commission to the public company TRAGSA.