In other words, “what the Government is predicting is a reduction in current expenditure focused on reducing, for example, the purchase of medicines or medical devices – but this will happen in a context in which the budget itself foresees an increase in healthcare activity and it is not clear how this will be done. It will be because it wants to change therapeutic protocols, because it wants to use more generic medicines, buy more biosimilar medicines, even change the way in which Do you negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry? We don’t know,” he says.
At this stage, Xavier Barreto admits to DN that the lack of details and information about how this OE2026 will be executed does not allow us to say that it “will not be feasible”, but, there is something that can be said from the outset, “it is that it will be an extremely demanding budget”.
Especially because, he emphasizes, “it is October and the organizational development plans for 2025 proposed by the hospitals under its supervision, which could give them more autonomy in management, have not even been approved yet. Unfortunately, we will end the year without the approval of these plans”, thus arguing that “we have to be more consistent”.
Now, “if it was included in the Government program that hospitals would have more autonomy, then it is necessary, in fact, for such measures to be implemented. We cannot stop at the mere enunciation of measures in a Government program. And what I hope is that this measure, despite not being included in the OE2026, the Government can implement the autonomy it promised in 2026, which is very important to improve the management of hospitals”.
Xavier Barreto also argues that “this budget does not deviate much from previous budgets, with the exception of the reduction in expenditure on goods and services, which is very considerable, and worrying”, reinforcing that until “it is known what, in fact, the Government’s objective is, it is not possible to assume that what is intended is a limitation in the provision of care”.
For now, he says, it is known that the total slack in the OE is very small, 0.1%, around 200 million euros, and if we look at what has happened in health in recent years, it is not difficult to imagine that we could have a slippage that could jeopardize the future”.