The president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Astrid Pérez, began this Friday in Gran Canaria the institutional action “Listen to Advance” with a visit to the Alejandro Da Silva Canary Foundation against Leukemia, a benchmark entity in supporting patients with onco-hematological diseases and their families.
With this initiative, the president will hold meetings in different social entities of the archipelago with the aim of knowing their reality firsthand, collecting their proposals, and reinforcing institutional collaboration. After this visit to Gran Canaria, the initiative will continue in the rest of the islands.
During the meeting, families and professionals from the Alejandro Da Silva Foundation conveyed to the president various urgent needs, among them the creation of a technical office or specific information point to guide families, the reinforcement of psychological support —both for patients and their environment— and the incorporation of support teachers to help minors who, due to treatments, have their school rhythm interrupted.
One of the attending mothers emphasized the importance of continued emotional support for families, while the technical team highlighted the existing care overload. One of the entity's psychologists explained that, currently, “it is impossible to attend to all the people who require support due to the lack of sufficient resources.”
In the meeting participated on behalf of the foundation Manuel Da Silva, Ana Villavicencio, Elena Ojeda and doctor Francisco Rodríguez Lozano, in addition to volunteers, working staff and families.
The Foundation, created in 1989 after the personal experience of its founders with their son's illness, complements healthcare with emotional, social, and psychosocial support. It has headquarters in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, as well as group homes for patients from non-capital islands. In 2025, they assisted 910 users between patients and family members and hosted 49 patients with their families in their group homes.
At the end of the meeting, the president of Parliament pledged to convey the demands made by the families, technicians, and the Foundation itself to the relevant departments and administrations in each area. "Listening to families is the first step to moving forward," she stressed, in line with the spirit of this institutional action, which places active listening as the central axis of public action.