Lanzarote patients who travel to Gran Canaria will finally be able to stay at the Casa del Marino

Lanzarote patients who travel to Gran Canaria will finally be able to stay at the Casa del Marino

The Minister of Employment and Social Affairs of the Government of the Canary Islands, Marisa Zamora, announced this Wednesday that she has received a communication from the Social Marine Institute ...

June 14 2006 (17:35 WEST)
Patients from Lanzarote who travel to Gran Canaria will finally be able to stay at the Casa del Marino
Patients from Lanzarote who travel to Gran Canaria will finally be able to stay at the Casa del Marino

The Minister of Employment and Social Affairs of the Government of the Canary Islands, Marisa Zamora, announced this Wednesday that she has received a communication from the Social Marine Institute authorizing the use of the hostels of the Casas del Marino in Tenerife and Gran Canaria by people who are not sea workers or their families, so that those who travel from the non-capital islands for medical consultations or interventions have this accommodation if their economic resources are scarce.

This announcement comes after speculation that the Casa del Marino in Las Palmas would finally be used as a center for immigrants, although since the end of 2005 the Government of the Canary Islands committed to enabling the facilities of the Casa del Marino to accommodate patients who must receive treatment in the capital. The Director of Health in Lanzarote, Juan Manuel Sosa, informed the president of AFOL, Carmen Arrocha, at the beginning of last April that there was a possibility that the Casa del Marino would be converted into a reception center for immigrants, although days later Sosa declared that it would soon be enabled to solve the problem of the inhabitants of the smaller islands.

Zamora pointed out that in the Canary Islands there are four hostels of these characteristics, of which those of Santa Cruz and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria have a high occupancy rate, specifically 75 percent. The Minister specified that the communication received specifies that sea workers and their families will have preference in their use, after which she described the news as "positive".

According to her, her department will initiate conversations with the regional health area to determine whether the initiative is carried out through an agreement or through another procedure that facilitates the use of the facilities by patients who need it. "This is one more step, because in addition we are working in this sense to have the possibility of providing apartments for people who need to travel to Tenerife and Gran Canaria to receive medical attention," she said.

The Minister responded to the question asked by the Socialist deputy Manuela Armas, who recalled that a parliamentary resolution of April 6, 2005 pointed to the use of the hostels of the Casas de la Marina for this purpose. After listening to the Minister's intervention, she said she hoped that these demands of families with sick people would be met before the end of the legislature, "who with few resources have to face hard journeys, so it is about giving them more dignity in such dramatic transfers".

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