Education, Health and the Cabildo of Lanzarote could sign in the coming days an agreement to provide a specialized service, which includes therapists and physiotherapists, to around 120 children with motor and sensory problems, who currently attend four schools in Lanzarote. Apparently, a meeting will be held this week to agree on this agreement, which already exists in Tenerife, and which could make life easier for both these children and their families.
Juan Manuel Sosa, director of the Health Area, explained that the first meeting took place on January 20. Both he and the island's director of Education, Juan Cruz, and the Minister of Social Affairs of the Cabildo, Marci Acuña, as well as parents integrated in the Adimo association, which works with children with disabilities, attended. "In this meeting they informed us about the situation and the problems of these minors," Sosa said on Radio Lanzarote.
On the island there are approximately 120 children who suffer from motor deficiencies, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism, pervasive developmental disorders, hyperactivity, mental and psychomotor retardation or sensory deficit. At the moment, Education has a key classroom in four schools on the island, such as Capellanía de Yágabo, César Manrique, Doctor Alfonso Spínola and IES San Bartolomé.
"We have three buses hired that pick up these children and take them to their key classrooms, where there are teachers and educators perfectly trained to care for these minors," said Sosa, who, however, is aware that these children need a "more specialized" service. And, according to what he has recognized, these children require "the work of an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist", which they do not currently have.
The problem that has arisen is that in Lanzarote this issue "is not regulated" and is not carried out "in a stable way", but rather the staff must be hired "year after year". "It depends every year on the island's director of Education getting in touch with me, with the director of the Health Area. That, in turn, we get in touch with the person in charge of the Department of Social Affairs and that he contacts the physiotherapists to sign the contract," he stated.
Instability and anguish
According to Sosa himself, this generates "instability in the professionals themselves who have to provide this care to the children", as well as in the parents who feel "anguish every year when they do not know if this staff is going to be hired or not". In addition, according to the director of the Health Area in Lanzarote, "there is also no adequate communication between the teachers who run the key classroom and the occupational therapists."
For this reason, both Education and Health and the Cabildo of Lanzarote have agreed to try to regularize this situation, which affects 120 families on the island. "Through a law or a decree we want to be able to hire specialized personnel, because we have to take into account that this is a very serious problem," said Sosa, who has also raised the possibility of increasing the hiring of therapists or physiotherapists for the benefit of these children.
"We want these workers to be coordinated both with the teachers in the key classroom and with the hospital's rehabilitation service. It is about signing an agreement so that this is regulated and there is no need to improvise every year," Sosa specified.