The coordinator of Izquierda Unida in Lanzarote, Jorge Peñas, has described the imminent transfer and consequent closure of the Insular Hospital as an "unacceptable capitulation to private interests," as well as "a frontal attack on the fundamental rights of the people of Lanzarote," especially the elderly population.
In a statement released this Wednesday, Izquierda Unida Canarias has argued that this center has a 75-year history of uninterrupted service in caring for the elderly, constituting "an irreplaceable social and health heritage." The political party has highlighted that the Government pact in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, led by Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular, "intends to dismantle" this unique space in the Canary Islands "without offering viable alternatives or guarantees of public continuity."
The party has indicated that this maneuver is part of "the agenda of privatization and commodification" of public services that Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular systematically develop on the islands. "Behind the administrative inaction and the lack of maintenance of the building, a purely commercial interest is glimpsed," it maintained. At the same time, the progressive organization has directly pointed to the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, and the Minister of Social Welfare, Marciano Acuña, as "political accomplices of a strategy aimed at degrading the public hospital to subsequently justify the outsourcing of socio-health assistance to private corporations."
The petition to Save the Insular Hospital of Lanzarote has already reached 14,600 signatures.
Denounces "a strategy of institutional abandonment"
From IUC's perspective, the decision to transfer the Geriatrics service to an adjacent module within the Dr. José Molina Orosa General Hospital - popularly known as "the little hospital" - "does not respond to rigorous healthcare planning, but rather to a deliberate strategy of abandonment and institutional deterioration."
The political party has pointed out that, despite the Ministry of Health defending the transfer "under the pretext of structural safety deficiencies" in the centennial building in Arrecife, the reality is that the budget of the Canary Islands Autonomous Community for the current fiscal year "does not include any specific financial allocation or defined technical project for the rehabilitation of the original building."
"This absence of a financial record reveals that the supposed provisional nature of the measure is, in practice, a definitive closure that will let the only specialized geriatric hospital in all of the Canary Islands die," the party has maintained.
The care model of the Insular Hospital versus socio-sanitary dismantling
The uniqueness of the Insular Hospital lies in its multidisciplinary care approach, specifically designed for rehabilitation, treatment of frailty, and maintenance of the dignity of dependent elderly people.
Likewise, it has recalled that unlike a conventional acute hospital ward, the center offers "a humanized environment where specialized medical care is intertwined with programs of occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy, psychology, and socio-cultural activities".
Real clinical cases, such as that of patients who have managed to recover their speech, mobility, and personal autonomy after serious pathological processes, show that this hospital "is not a simple residential space, but a first-rate therapeutic resource where the quality of life of users is prioritized," it has defended.
"The forced transfer of these activities to a modular structure of a generic nature completely distorts this specialized care model," IUC has continued. Along these lines, the medical and nursing staff of the center itself have warned about the limitations of the new destination space, which was not designed to comprehensively house the portfolio of services for the Geriatrics specialty.
"By losing direct contact with an open environment and the proximity to the sea that characterize the historic building in Arrecife, patients will be confined to a conventional ward that healthcare professionals liken to a pit lacking recreational conditions," the party has denounced.
At the same time, it has warned that the fragmentation of services puts the center's accreditation as a multidisciplinary teaching unit in "severe danger," since the loss of the acute unit and the day hospital disrupts the training program required by the Ministry of Health.
Alert of possible "real estate speculation"
Izquierda Unida Canarias has indicated that the location of the Insular Hospital in a coastal area of high strategic value within the urban planning of Arrecife, adjacent to the sports marina, "feeds founded suspicions of real estate speculation". By gradually vacating 60% of the healthcare activity - transferring outpatient clinics, medium-stay, and day hospital, and only provisionally maintaining the high-requirement socio-health residence - the island government "reduces the activity of the property to a minimum".
"This systematic vacating of a public domain land of incalculable commercial value facilitates the future transfer of this privileged space to business initiatives linked to luxury leisure or tourism development, irreversibly depriving the island's families of an essential community health infrastructure," the party has maintained.
Faced with this scenario of dismantling essential services, the coordinator of IUC, Jorge Peñas, has claimed the need to articulate a "social equivalent to the Canary Islands' REF".
The Economic and Fiscal Regime of the Canary Islands has traditionally served to "compensate for insularity and reduce the costs of business transactions, but public administrations have systematically forgotten to apply compensation for the double insularity in terms of elementary social rights such as healthcare and education".
For Peñas, the inhabitants of Lanzarote and La Graciosa "cannot continue to endure a chronic decline in the quality of their public health services, finding themselves often forced to travel from island to receive dignified care or to resort to private medicine due to the lack of public socio-health resources in their own environment".
Izquierda Unida Canaria has maintained that governing consists of "foreseeing and acting" to prevent the degradation of public resources, and not in justifying the eviction of a public hospital through propaganda press conferences. Therefore, the progressive organization demands "the immediate suspension of any provisional transfer plan to the Dr. José Molina Orosa Hospital that does not have a binding schedule, a financial allocation from the Government of the Canary Islands, and a project for comprehensive rehabilitation approved by the community of professionals and users of the center".
Social mobilization is a decisive instrument to stop this "privatizing drift". The signature collection campaign promoted by citizens and professional groups of the center, which already exceeds 14,600 supports on civic platforms, shows that Lanzarote society unanimously demands the conservation and enhancement of the Insular Hospital.
From IUC, a call has been made for unity of action among progressive forces, unions, and neighborhood movements on the island to "firmly defend health sovereignty", prevent the building "from becoming prey to real estate speculation" and consolidate a public care system that "guarantees the well-being and dignity of the elderly in Lanzarote".
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