translated from Spanish: Following questioning of Comptroller Zúñiga, he assured that Space Riesco needs “additional services to transform a shed into a hospital service”

The Undersecretary of Care Networks, Arturo Zúñiga, referred to questions in the government’s contract with Espacio Riesco, which is empowered to care for patients infected with coronavirus and in a less serious state. This, after the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic declared the contract illegal, ensuring that there are duplicate payments in the document for the enabling of the premises as an emergency hospital. By a statement, the service said that it “promptly instructed the comments made by the Comptroller General of the Republic to the contract of this distribution with the Centro Convenciones Santiago S.A.”. And in this sense, Zúñiga, argued that “one thing is a lease for a physical space, a winery, and another very different is to turn that winery into a hospital where patients are cared for and lives saved”. In addition, Zúñiga insisted that “there are other contracts, not only between the North Metropolitan Health Service and Riesco Space, where additional services are established to transform a shed into a hospital service,” he said. He explained that “we need in hospitals toilet, surveillance, air conditioning, nursing, food. All these additional services that transform a winery into a hospital are contracts that are made not only with the Huechuraba Hospital Center, but can also be done with other companies, as is the case of food and clinical services”. The information requested by the agency will be detailed by the North Metropolitan Health Service, confirmed by the authority.

Original source in Spanish