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01/01/2012

Healthcare dispute between La Rioja and the Basque Country

On September 9 the regional government of La Rioja unilaterally decided to stop providing specialist health care at Logroño Hospital for patients resident in the Rioja Alavesa area, which is part of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.

This move is particularly surprising in view of the fact that kidney transplant operations patients from La Rioja are performed in Basque Health Service hospitals under an agreement signed by the two regional governments in 1997. 110 of the 225 kidneys transplanted into patients from La Rioja in Basque hospitals in the past 10 years came from Basque donors.

La Rioja and the Basque Country have now reached an agreement to settle the dispute, at least provisionally.