The Sanidad de Castilla y León (Sacyl) admitted that it was investigating 15 doctors at the Burgos University Hospital (HUBU) “for alleged non-compliance with the regulations that regulate the compatibility of the profession with the private sector for those who are under public health control.” According to a spokesperson for the Spanish and Leonese Administration, the Sacyl Inspectorate is analyzing various complaints against resuscitators, surgeons and anesthetists for irregularities with the regulations which seek to prevent doctors in the public sector from overstepping their possible independent activities.
The doctors who complain about the HUBU with those who spoke in the country believe that these failures are caused in particular by the rebasing of the hours authorized in private companies or directly by the fact of not having requested this compatibility. According to the author, the entity would benefit from the Recoletas Group, in whose private centers it is claimed that there are doctors training at the HUBU who carry out surgical interventions or personal care to parents who assist the hospital. “It’s a vicious circle, the Sacyl doctor is responsible for the waiting list, he is interested in generating it because I charge for the private room,” explains a whistleblower, outraged because the Recoletas are multiplying in the community with millions of people working with the Junta (PP) to dismantle Sacyl. Today, Burgos Hospital has more days of surgical waiting for patients, with 117.30 days more than the autonomous average during the third quarter of 2025.
Doctors have been warning about these irregularities since 2021 and have denounced a “presumption of public-private corruption” which was sent to the Colegio Oficial de Médicos burgalés, to the Health Council, to the HUBU inspection, to the management of Sacyl in Burgos, to the Labor Inspectorate or to Social Security. EL PAÍS has accessed the documents which confirm that the case has been brought before these authorities, for the moment without proper answers.
One of the whistleblowers announces that he will take the losses to the Fiscalía because “the law of incompatibilities is massively violated” and that he, working in one of the private centers where these apparent irregularities exist, has seen surgeons exceed the weekly working hours that they can at most attribute to the private sector, some even illegally because they were dismissed for reasons of paternity or because they are residents, they are without additional training to interventions. Aggravated people have proven that they have minutes where a surgeon confirms that he is performing a specific procedure at the end of the day where he should be in his position at the HUBU or at rest.
“The victims are patients and honorable doctors who work in the public or in the public and private or in the private sector only and who earn less money due to unfair competence,” criticizes the health service, which accuses the Recoletas Group of receiving funds to alleviate the waiting list problems that it itself generates with the attitude of its doctors. According to this complainant, although Burgos is a “small town” of 175,000 inhabitants, these practices are more obvious than in large cities “where everything is diluted”. “We all pay, public and private,” he concludes.
The gatherings organize concerts in Burgos specialties such as general surgery, traumatology, urology and gynecology. The State Contracts portal estimates that this private entity receives contracts worth tens of millions of euros every year, at least 30 between different documents, for surgical support to Sacyl throughout the community, including Burgos. The Burgundian health department awarded Recoletas concrete contracts in 2024 such as 945,400 euros for “the outsourcing of surgical procedures”.
The General Secretary of Health of Public Commissions, Ana Rosa Arribas, assures that “in Burgos there are blatant cases of intervention in the private sector while she is on duty in the public sector, or during her usual route, the MIR who is in training and does not have to operate”. “This has been proven with the intervention documents, signed by the doctor, for hours and days”, also needs the health department. In addition, he clarifies that Recoletas has had two hospitals in Castile and León for 12 years and now the 25th: “It is a company for the private sector, it has the protocol and is in agreement with the PP”.
Her UGT counterpart, Rosa López, reiterates these “several complaints for non-compliance with the incompatibility regime” and demands “transparency and equal treatment within the public health system, it is essential that all professional activities respect the law and do not harm the quality of care for citizens”. The plaintiffs deplore the lack of attention given to their protests in those years: “Nothing happened here, that the College of Physicians could not act and the management of the call for response, saying that there were investigations opened on reserved information who knows what that means”.
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