The Atalaia Living Care Association today rejected the conclusions of the Court of Auditors’ (TdC) audit report on the agreements with public funding between the Government of Madeira and private associations in the health area.
The president of the association, Tony Saramago, said that the data in the report targeting Atalaia Living Care are incorrect, based on partial facts, and regretted that the TdC did not allow the association to defend itself.
Tony Saramago was speaking at the Permanent Specialized Committee on Health and Civil Protection of the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, as part of a hearing requested by the PS parliamentary group to clarify “issues related to cooperation agreements or protocols, with public funding, between the Autonomous Region of Madeira and private associations in the areas of support for the elderly and health during the years 2019 to 2021.”
“We are not an association of criminals, nor of influence peddling, nor of money laundering,” said Tony Saramago, arguing that Atalaia Living Care has extensive experience in the area of long-term care and will not admit to being judged by anyone.
The association’s president made numerous criticisms of the TdC and spoke of macabre reports that didn’t have a leg to stand on.
the TdC audit hightlighted the existence of a director who earns a salary equivalent to a member of the Government, while Mr Saramago pointed out that this professional was responsible for making the association profitable, which had been recording financial losses over the last few years.
The TdC concluded, in an audit released on the 10th of February, that the implementation and coordination of the Integrated Continued Care Network of Madeira, created in 2018, failed to comply with the law and presents an “excessive and unexplained dependence” on a private non-profit association.
“The implementation and attempt to coordinate the Network has been done illegally, informally, without control, is ineffective, with indicated serious negligence, and with excessive and unexplained public dependence on a specific private non-profit association, without financial evaluation and heterocontrol of it,” reads the audit report on cooperation agreements and protocols with public funding, between the Autonomous Region of Madeira and private associations in the areas of support for the elderly and health, between 2019 and 2021.
According to the document, “the proliferation and succession of public coordinating bodies of the Network, combined with both the lack of capacity of public health and social security services, as well as incomprehensible informality, have led to a very deficient and ineffective exercise of the Network’s competences.”
The TdC points out that several of the rules that govern the Network, including the setting of the costs of daily hospitalisation, were influenced “illegally by an ‘ad hoc’ technical commission created by the Regional Government, which included a lawyer linked to the largest private institution of social solidarity in the Autonomous Region of Madeira, which thus benefited from the decision of public funding based on the intervention of said lawyer.”
Between 2019 and 2021, 11 programme contracts were signed, for a total of 36.1 million euros, of which 60.3% (21.8 million) were with the association in question (Atalaia Living Care).
“In the period under review, the contractual and law breaches found led, in relation to health care, to the illegal payment of at least three million euros, at the expense of the regional health budget and at least 1.8 million euros at the expense of social security money,” highlights the TdC.
The audit of the Madeira regional section of the TdC highlights issues like the regional coordination team of the Integrated Continued Care Network not functioning properly, the absence of an integrated information system, and weak supervision and control over publicly funded care.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
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