The Councilor for Social Welfare of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Isabel Martín, has shown “her astonishment” at the request of the deputy spokesperson for CC, Pedro San Ginés, who asks the Corporation to suspend the bidding process for the service to dependent elderly people. “He is asking me not to comply with a law”, says the councilor.
Martín maintains that the bidding process was launched to comply with “a law of public sector contracts”, which is “more than 15 years old” and also implies compliance “with a European directive”.
In addition, the councilor expresses her disbelief at San Ginés' accusations, since she assures that the now deputy spokesperson for CC, “could have sought different solutions” to the relations with the entities that provide the services, during the “ten years that he was governing” as president of the Cabildo. “Didn't he find the possibility of avoiding the lifting of objections for millions of euros that he has been doing while governing?”, Martín denounces.
Regarding the bidding process, the councilor assures that “each island has a way of working”. In the case of Lanzarote, she affirms that “repeatedly for ten years”, the Corporation's Intervention has requested “to regularize the service that is being provided within the dependency and vulnerability sector”. Therefore, Isabel Martín defends that they are acting so that this management has the approval of the intervention of the Cabildo de Lanzarote.
The Association of Relatives of Alzheimer's and Other Dementias (AFA) has provided the service for more than twenty years, and the councilor assures that they have done so “with very good will”, in addition to adding that she will never “argue that the care is not correct”. However, she maintains that the control mechanisms so far by the Cabildo have been “very precarious”. For this reason, she anticipates that when the service is awarded, a contracting period of “two years” will be established, which will be subject to “exhaustive control by the Cabildo team”. Once the 24 months have passed, the Corporation will take a measurement to find out "how each of the services can improve or not".
“When one gives money for a service, one not only fulfills it by giving it, but by knowing what the purpose is”
“How many psychology, physiotherapy, speech therapy, guidance and different professional sector sessions are taking place in each of the services?”, asks the councilor, who recognizes that as the service is currently, it is “very difficult” to answer those questions.
“When one gives money for a service, one not only fulfills it by giving it, but by knowing what the purpose is”, asserts Isabel Martín, in relation to the lack of control by the Cabildo in recent years.
In addition, she maintains that what they intend to achieve from the Cabildo is to know the medical recommendations in relation to how many sessions a user needs, whether "weekly, biweekly or monthly”. Currently, the councilor assures that “there is no evidence that this is happening”.
Finally, she assures that the quality of the care service for the elderly and dependent will not only remain the same, but “that work will be done to make it even higher”, because it is an issue “that interests us all”. “Sooner or later we will need the administration to take care of us”, says Isabel Martín.
