A new research project by the European Network of Corporate Observatories explores the privatisation of hospitals and nursing homes in Europe.
The commodification of the health sector has been an ongoing process for several decades; both at the level of international institutions (WHO but also IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization [1]) and of European or national institutions, public policies – whose mantras are liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation – have largely favoured the development of a for-profit health sector. Whereas the pharmaceutical sector and its multinationals pocketing gigantic profits is fairly well documented, this is not the case for the private hospital sector or the sector of private institutions for the elderly. This is why we decided to collect the data available on private for-profit companies active in these two sectors in Europe and to create an interactive map.
Authors: Sébastien Franco/Elsa Delmas.
In this investigation :
Fresenius y la Fundación Jiménez Díaz en Madrid : una auditoría ciudadana de la deuda generada por la privatización de hospitales
Mapping the privatisation of healthcare in Europe
Penta in Slovakia : from real estate to private clinics
Bupa aged care homes in Australia & the UK regularly rated ‘inadequate’
Asklepios Kliniken under fire for staffing shortages and hospital closures
The political connections behind the rise of privatised care ’champions’ in France
In Germany, founders of private hospital companies are bankrolling the pro-business party FDP
In the midst of a pandemic, WHO is full of praises for the private for-profit healthcare sector
Caring for profit : resources