Clock ticking for Madrid public health

As deputies debated next year’s budget for the region inside, thousands of people gathered in front of the Madrid Assembly on Wednesday evening to demonstrate against the Popular Party-run regional government’s healthcare privatization plans.

“Public health,” was the most-repeated chant from the protestors, who formed a block stretching back 100 meters from the assembly entrance, with many also directing their rage against regional health chief Javier Fernández-Lasquetty.

“What Mr Lasquetty wants with this model is customers, not patients,” said one porter from the Virgen de la Paz hospital. “The only thing that interests them is having profitable sick people.”

Earlier, as health workers — now in their fourth week of strikes — protested outside the Reina Sofía Museum, Lasquetty rejected proposals by labor unions and health professionals to save 1.2 billion euros without resorting to privatization, saying they did not have “sufficient depth.” He also admitted he didn’t know how much his plans to hand over the management of six hospitals and 27 health centers to private firms would save public coffers. “I cannot say. It will depend on when the outsourcing is done, on the resources, on the number of professionals who want to continue in the hospitals,” he told a news conference. The measures are due to be passed on Thursday.