The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, visited La Graciosa today to see first-hand the health resources of the Canary Islands Emergency Service, attached to the public company Gestión de Servicios para la Salud y Seguridad (GSC) in the Canary Islands, and dependent on the Ministry of Health. Accompanied by the Ministers of Health and Territorial Policy, Water and Emergencies, Esther Monzón and Manuel Miranda, as well as the President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, and the Mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque, they visited the base post of the new ambulance that began providing services on the island in June. In total, in these three months the new service has been activated on 133 occasions.
The president highlighted “the importance of these new resources for urgent health interventions on the island, which have involved an investment of 1,105,765 euros and which represents an improvement in both material and personnel resources”. Specifically, of the 133 activations of the new service on the eighth island, almost one hundred (93) corresponded to incidents related to diseases and twenty (24) to interventions in accidents.
Fernando Clavijo stressed that “we continue to take steps to bring healthcare closer to all citizens, regardless of the island on which they reside. Attention -he stressed- that today in La Graciosa allows us to give a faster, more effective and safer response to those who need it with these new resources”.
Monzón emphasized that “in addition to a basic life support ambulance, the new service includes an additional 4x4 rescue vehicle that can be used by healthcare professionals to reach places that are inaccessible to other types of transport”. This is one of the improvements to this service that was awarded by GSC Canarias on March 27 and whose contract was formalized on April 9.
The 4x4 vehicle that is added to the basic life support ambulance also has three seats for healthcare personnel, plus the stretcher, and has the capacity to transport all the sanitary equipment required for the contracted ambulance.
Another of the improvements included in the new ambulance service contract for the island is the incorporation of an additional healthcare transport technician for those users who require transfer by stretcher on the boats that make the maritime route between La Graciosa and Lanzarote.
Improvements in technical health equipment
Likewise, the new ambulance service for La Graciosa also includes improvements in the technical health equipment of the vehicles, such as the incorporation of an IPPV artificial respirator guided by voice to assist cardiac massage and data transmission via Bluetooth to the AmbulancePad application, among other improvements.
For the Ministry of Health, these are new resources that result in urgent healthcare for the population residing in La Graciosa, or who visit the island.
The Government of the Canary Islands plans to tender in 2026 the supply and sanitation project for La Graciosa
During the institutional visit, President Fernando Clavijo also met with residents and merchants to analyze the situation of water supply and sanitation on the island.
The head of the Executive, accompanied by the Minister of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water, Manuel Miranda, and the General Director of Water, Mónica Curiel, as well as the President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, and the Mayor of Teguise, Olivia Duque, recalled that the Government set itself the strategic objective of providing La Graciosa with a comprehensive water cycle management system.
To this end, in December 2024 a decree was approved that allowed the suspension of the current island and municipal planning, which facilitated the declaration of these actions as projects of regional interest.
In this framework, the Ministry plans to tender at the beginning of 2026 the replacement of the submarine pipeline that connects La Graciosa with Lanzarote, in service for more than 20 years and with frequent breakdowns. The work will have a cost of more than 2 million euros and an estimated execution period of seven months.
In parallel, work is being done on a new sanitation system, whose project will be drafted in the second quarter of 2026.
The Minister of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water, Manuel Miranda, stressed that “we are working so that at the end of the legislature the situation of La Graciosa is totally different from the one we found”.