The first vice president of the Island Council and general secretary of the Socialist Party (PSOE) in Lanzarote, Manuel Fajardo, hopes that the work he began yesterday as Minister of Health will last until 2007, promising that he will pay special attention to the needs related to social policy.
It seems a bit strange that Fajardo has assumed the Ministry of Health, but as he said in an interview granted to Radio Lanzarote, he has suffered the deficiencies of health services firsthand, and by his own decision he wants to face the problems to try to solve them.
Urgent interview with the president
Fajardo is in favor, and so he told President Inés Rojas, of requesting an urgent interview with the President of the Canary Islands Government and the Minister of Economy and Finance to present them with a detailed and rigorous list of the needs that the Island suffers. The Executive has a large historical debt with Lanzarote and if we talk about Health, the obligation must already be charged with interest. The socialist councilor will advocate for the expansion of the Island Hospital and the increase in allowances for patients from non-capital islands who must travel to Gran Canaria and Tenerife, among many other demands.
Fajardo will appeal to formulas such as buying lodging residences for when it is necessary to travel for medical reasons or reaching agreements with certain facilities that allow both patients and accompanying family members to stay overnight with dignity. "I like to establish contact with people and there are many people who need help because the inequalities are great," he noted.
More responsibilities
The socialist, who is also the head of the Ministry of Interior and Presidency, is aware that to develop his work he needs full dedication, especially if he wants to recover all the time that has been lost due to the countless institutional crises of the current legislature. In short, the citizen, he stressed, wants fewer good words and more deeds.
Manuel Fajardo also stressed that his party colleague, Carlos Espino, has a very powerful Ministry in Territorial Policy, with pending tasks such as the Territorial Plan. "There we will know how much and where can be built on this Island."
According to him, the Plan should be ready before April 2006. Likewise, he commented that Espino knows perfectly well what he has to do and he trusted that now the details of the Island Territorial Planning Plan (PIOT) will be known, so that the document is not seen as an enemy of the farmer or the rancher. He advanced that when the Minister of Territorial Policy has to apply a firm hand "more than one will have to hide."
Crisis resolved
The latest political events of the Cabildo are, for Fajardo, the main demonstration that the Socialist Party was not interested in putting particular interests before those of the Island.
At the exit of the plenary session in which Inés Rojas took office as president, Fajardo commented that he was very happy because the crisis was finally resolved, although he regretted that more than 30 days had been lost due to the political stubbornness of the Popular Party (PP).
Having overcome the obstacle, the socialist councilor said that it is now time to look to the future, hoping that the PP and Alternativa Ciudadana will do a good job from the opposition ranks. "We all have to row to the same side because if the Cabildo does well, the citizens do well," warned Fajardo, who fully trusts in the capabilities and work of the socialist councilors who assumed responsibilities in different areas of government.
The secretary of the socialists recalled that no one has been forced to get into politics in such a way that responsibility is voluntary, and in any case it will have to be answered even if family time has to be sacrificed.