“I want to comment on the abusive prices, of true usury (and this has been happening for a long time) in the cafeteria of the Sant Joan Despí Moisès Broggi Hospital. For a small coffee with milk and a croissant they charged me 4.50 euros.” This is the complaint that Manel Prieto sent a few days ago to the RAC1.cat participation mailbox.
This user, who attached the breakfast ticket, detailed that the “organic” croissant cost €2.45 and the coffee cost €1.85 0.20 for the disposable cup. “The most crazy thing is that they even charge you for the glass to drink the coffee in the same cafeteria!” Prieto added.
A couple of days later, another similar breakfast, this time with a medium latte (in a normal cup) for 2.20 euros. In total, 4.65 euros for a basic breakfast in the cafeteria of this public hospital in Baix Llobregat. The normal croissant costs €1.90, so in any case breakfast exceeds 4 euros. “Everything is very expensive, and the quality is nothing out of this world, rather mediocre,” laments Manel Prieto, who often goes to the health center because his father is hospitalized.
“This cafeteria has had very high prices for a long time. It seems very strong to me that they abuse like this, and even more so in a public hospital,” denounces the user, who has already filed a complaint at the hospital.
The restaurant service at the Moisès Broggi hospital is managed by the company Sodexo, which has just renewed its concession in the tender opened by the Integral Health Consortium (CSI). The Consortium is a public company that also manages other health centers such as Hospital Dos de Maig or General Hospital de Hospitalet.
The conditions that regulate this concession refer to a “cooking and food service carried out with criteria of economic, social and environmental efficiency and with an optimal level of quality.” The technical requirements set the sales prices for the centers' staff, but no limitation is established on the sales prices to the public in cafeterias and hospital vending machines.
When contacting the Consorci to find out if the point of the contract that says that “the company will have to foresee possible revisions if they are the reason for complaints or claims by users and take into account the quality and variety of the offer in relation to the price that is imputed”, the response has been to redirect us to the organization's transparency portal.
To make matters worse, we have been able to verify that at Dos de Maig the cafeteria prices are not exactly the same as at Moisès Broggi, when the service is regulated by the same management contract. In the hospital located in the center of Barcelona, the bar is somewhat cheaper (a coffee with milk and a croissant costs €3.40). In this regard, the Consorci does not give any response either.
The price differences are even more pronounced if we take a broader look. At the Hospital Clínic, for example, a coffee with milk and a croissant costs only €1.85. In Can Ruti, this basic breakfast costs €2.95, at the Sant Pau hospital it costs €3.10, and in Sant Joan de Déu, €3.35.
These are just some examples that we have been able to collect in public hospitals in the Barcelona area, and we see that the inequalities are important. Given this, the question arises as to whether there is no general regulation that limits the prices of public hospital cafeterias. Surprisingly, the answer is no.
The Department of Health explains that none of the applicable laws and regulations refer to cafeteria or restaurant services within health centers. And the quality standards that are taken into account only establish that the “cafeteria service for staff must be available 24 hours a day”, and that there must be “correct, balanced, varied, appetizing and well-seasoned diets to cover the diverse types of clients.”
“We did not find any regulation that establishes specific price control either in our own centers or in subsidized centers. It must be understood that the management of these restaurant services open to the public are not mandatory and, in any case, depend on the center,” confirms Salut in response to questions from RAC1.cat. That is, the Generalitat delegates the management of cafeterias and restaurants to each hospital.
The vast majority of centers choose to outsource the service through public tenders that can set or limit public sale prices in greater or lesser detail.
For example, the eight hospitals managed by the ICS throughout Catalonia (including Vall d'Hebron, Bellvitge, Can Ruti and the three main hospitals of Tarragona, Girona and Lleida) do do so. “Competitions to manage hospital cafeterias set a maximum price for items and companies must comply with it,” says the Institut Català de la Salut.
On the other hand, as we have seen, the hospitals that depend on the Comprehensive Health Consortium do not regulate it specifically, which allows the winning company to raise prices.
“The contests are absolutely different, each center makes its own and sets the criteria and demands it wants,” confirms in RAC1.cat the head of Dietetics and Food at the Hospital de la Santa Cruz y San Pablo, Gemma Navarro.
Navarro, who knows the sector well, admits that “many hospitals wash their hands” and says that it would be difficult to homogenize restaurant services because “management autonomy is important.” Now, she believes that “a minimum of universal consensus on the price and quality of products” should be established.
The person in charge of the Sant Pau hospital explains that hospitals that are located in an isolated environment can charge higher prices because users do not have an alternative outside the center's doors. “In Sant Pau we have a lot of gastronomic offer around and we must adjust the price because if not, no one will come.”
For this reason, this hospital closely monitors the proposal of the winning company (currently Boris 45): “It is very supervised, they cannot change anything without the approval of the center.” Here, for example, a daily menu only costs 10.50 euros.
The absence of competition around the hospital is one of the elements that Manel Prieto, the user affected by the prices of the Moisès Broggi, also points out: “There is nothing around here, either you drink your coffee at the hospital or you don't drink it. And they take advantage of that.”
This article was originally published on RAC1.
