The Minister of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, Esther Monzón, has insisted this Tuesday that the Executive will not dismantle the geriatrics service of the Lanzarote Insular Hospital and guaranteed that the care model "will be maintained in its entirety".
All this despite the planned transfer to the adjacent building of the Doctor José Molina Orosa University Hospital for safety reasons, the minister pointed out in a parliamentary session and in response to questions from the PSOE and Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista about the future of the geriatric center, whose continuity motivated a demonstration held on June 20 in Arrecife.
The minister assured that the Government shares the citizens' demand because Lanzarote's geriatric model is "pioneering and a benchmark in Spain," while also asking that the population not be "manipulated" and that information be provided through official channels.
Monzón maintained that the transfer responds to technical reports from 2019 and 2023 that warned of the structural problems of the building, currently shored up, and recalled that the adaptation works for the building adjacent to Molina Orosa to house geriatric care have already been awarded for nearly one million euros.
Likewise, she affirmed that the current Insular Hospital will continue to be a public center with health or socio-health use, as determined by the master plan which, she said, has been developed based on technical criteria and will require the consensus of the island's institutions.
Socialist deputy Marcos Hernández defended that the citizen mobilization is not a "whim," but rather a response to the uncertainty generated by the statements of political leaders about the future of the hospital.
He also accused the Government of not having consulted professionals or allocated investments to the center while it does foresee them for other health infrastructures on the island.
For his part, NC-BC deputy Yone Caraballo accused the Executive of "lying" about the future of the Insular Hospital and assured that the workers have told him that the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has never met with them, despite having stated the opposite during the plenary session.
Caraballo has also pointed out that the Government intends to convert the hospital into a socio-health resource instead of maintaining the only monographic geriatric hospital in the Canary Islands, while Monzón has rejected that accusation and reiterated that "there is no and will be no dismantling" of the service, while reproaching the opposition for trying to alarm the population with information that, in his opinion, does not conform to reality.