ACN
Juan Carlos Alemán, general secretary of the Canary Islands socialists, declared yesterday that although he is convinced that there will be "a more adequate and more generous financial proposal from the central government" to contribute to solving the health deficit, he has "the impression that even if we managed to end the deficit today, as the Canary Islands Government works, in five years we will have it again".
Alemán shares the arguments of the regional Executive that the Canary Islands needs "special treatment" due to the notable increase in population in recent years, and the increase in the age of the population, which generates greater health expenditure, but considers that the deficit has grown because the Canary Islands Government "has managed Health as a courtyard of favors among them, with political favors, with managerial appointments that have a lot to do with the clientelistic structure and little with management".
For the leader of the Canary Islands socialists, "the government's health management is a disaster: it neither contains spending nor favors public health, diverting processes that benefit the private sector, so part of the deficit is due to the terrible management that the current government did and does in the health area".
Alemán, who highlights that the Canary Islands is a community with full powers in health matters, applauds the fact that the Canary Islands Government recognizes that there is a health deficit since in 1999, before the start of the electoral campaign, it launched an advertising campaign that said "Canary Islands zero deficit". "That meant that the Canary Islands had no deficit of any kind, but two months later they asked for a supplement for health and education spending".
Therefore, he believes that the Canary Islands Executive "has acted in an unclear manner in assuming its responsibilities for a deficit that has been increasing during these years. It has never wanted to declare it and today we find ourselves with a significant health deficit".
The PSC points out that, as it did during the years of the Aznar Government, it will continue to defend the "special treatment" and it is reasonable to demand it because there has been a significant imbalance in the Canary Islands population "and we socialists defend that, just as we defended a special treatment for the Canary Islands during the eight years of the Aznar Government, while CC remained silent".
They also agree with the Canary Islands Government that "applying a tax on gasoline is not reasonable in the Canary Islands because we already have it and in a community that is structured through transport it is not good".
"There is a health deficit and it must be faced, not as the PP does, and the Zapatero Government puts a proposal on the table to discuss it, bravely, because it opens the debate. We are starting the debate and there is a perfectible proposal and in the end the proposals will be adjusted".
