The ownership of a residence for the elderly should not be considered, but rather the type of activity that is carried out there
The Supreme Court establishes in a sentence that the private ownership of a elderly residence, where personnel dedicated expressly to health care work, such as nurses or physiotherapists, does not exclude that this type of center should be considered a health institution for the purposes of merit for services provided in a public employment offer.
The resolution, which is dated July 19, is signed by the Contentious-Administrative Judges Pablo Lucas, Celsa Pico, Luis Díez-Picazo and Pilar Tesoand agrees with a worker against previous resolutions issued by Extremaduran courts.
The Superior Court of Justice ruled in favor of the Extremaduran Health Service, that it did not take into account when scoring for some oppositions the work that this woman had done in a private residence as a physiotherapist.
Both the Jjudge of first instance of Merida and the Appeals Chamber of the Extremadura Superior Court considered that the work carried out in private geriatric residences did not constitute a provision of the regional health system, but rather a care work for the dependency. For this reason, they ruled that it could not be taken into account for the purposes of the aforementioned selection process, although the woman went to the Supreme Court and the body has seen in her case an appeal interest applicable to other similar cases.
The aim is to determine if, for the purposes of evaluating the merits in selective processes called by the Health Services, the health services provided in residences for the elderly can only achieve the category of health institution if the residences are publicly owned, or if, on the contrary, its private nature does not, by itself, prevent the health services provided in it from being inserted in a general and organized system, such as the public network of nursing homes, and can reach the category of institution sanitary.
The issue, according to the sentence to which he has had access THE SPANISH NEWSPAPER, from the Prensa Ibérica group, has some jurisprudential precedent that the high court now reinforces with its latest resolution. It is established that the solution does not depend on the ownership of a residence for the elderly, but is determined by the health activity that is carried out there.
“Therefore, the medical care unit of a residence for the elderly can be considered, for these purposes, as a health institution because a health activity is provided there, concludes the high court, agreeing with the claimant.
Thus, it states that “the health care units of privately owned, permanent, organized and adequately equipped with qualified personnel and means of residences for the elderly can be understood as integrated into the system and organization of these residences.”
Remember also that from a legal reform carried out in 2016, the merit of the health care providers came to be valued more broadly as it included all health centers or private health institutions, “which confirms the relevance of including private nursing homes as a health service that are integrated into a non-health organization”.
For all this, order roll back the claimant’s file to the administrative route “so that the work she previously carried out in geriatric residences of private or concerted ownership is valued.”