The Balearic Ministry of Health has billed almost 780,000 euros to foreign tourists staying at the three covid hotels on the Pitiusas islands during the pandemic, according to details from the Ibiza and Formentera Health Department. In total, the number of invoices issued amounts to 778,714 euros.
Accommodation at the three establishments, located in Platja d’en Bossa and Cala de Bou on Ibiza and in Migjorn on Formentera, is free for all patients, according to the Health Department, but the care provided is not. What is billed to users are the tracking of close contacts, the tests that are performed during isolation or transfers made by 061, both from their tourist accommodation to the covid hotels and on to the hospital if necessary, they detail.
A total of 1,569 people have passed through the covid hotels of the Pitiusas (1,397 on Ibiza and 172 on Formentera). Of these, almost half were tourists, a total of 762 (48.56%). Here we must distinguish between national tourists, who are not billed at all because their care is covered throughout the country, who totaled 225, and foreigners, who are charged for the health care they receive in the public health system during their vacations. Thus, in the covid hotels of the Pitiusas, since the first was opened in 2020, they have accommodated 537 visitors from other countries, which represent one in three of the users of these facilities, according to data provided by the Conselleria and the Pitiusas Health Department.
Each of them would have been billed, on average, 1,450 euros. In the case of tourists with health cards from the European Union, the State sends them to the countries of origin where, at the end of the year, the difference between the health expenditure of Spanish tourists in each of those countries and those of those territories here is calculated. When non-EU visitors travel with insurance, the Conselleria asks the insurer for payment. If they do not have it, the patients themselves are charged. This is how it works not only for the care provided to tourists from other countries in the covid hotels but also for any use of the public health system by these visitors.
The Health Department stresses the difference between invoiced and charged. The almost 800,000 euros is what is claimed, but what is finally charged is around 80% of the total. In other words, there is a 20% default, a percentage that the Health Department is trying to reduce.
The cost of the three Pitiusas covid hotels has been around three million euros, according to the data of the Conselleria and the Health Department. For the two initial establishments, the one in Platja d’en Bossa and the one on Formentera, the Health Department has paid two and a half million euros. To these should be added what was paid for the apartments in Cala de Bou, which were in operation for three months last summer: 297,000 euros per month, to which also must be added a variable amount depending on the occupancy registered by the establishment at any given time. The Health Department recalls that in all cases the contracting of these establishments was done “by the emergency procedure”.
A total of 25.30 euros per person per day in covid hotels
This has meant, according to calculations made by the Balearic Ministry of Health, a cost of 25.30 euros per person per day in these establishments, intended to accommodate both positive or close contacts of the islands in whose homes could not guarantee their isolation, migrants arriving as well as their close contacts and tourists in these same situations. The vast majority of the latter, explained the Health Department, were staying in hotels at the time they had to isolate themselves, as those who were in villas and houses found it easier to do so without having to move.
Three out of ten of the users of the covid hotels since they were put into operation, in July 2020, have been residents of the island, 469 in total: 353 in Platja d’en Bossa, 31 in Cala de Bou and 85 in Formentera. The migrants, 332, have all been in the Vila establishment.
The contract of the two covid hotels that are still open ends on March 31. At the moment they are not taking in any guests and remain in a “dormant” state, in case it is necessary to take someone in. Health and Social Welfare are assessing whether to use them to host refugees from Ukraine, as has been done on Mallorca.
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