The Minister of Social Welfare and Inclusion of the Cabildo of Lanzarote has reassured the public this Tuesday "in the face of the rumors launched in an interested manner" about a supposed closure of the Lanzarote Island Hospital. "You bring to this plenary session, more than an initiative, what you bring is a rumor, because it is not true that there are doubts about the continuity of geriatric specialization on our island," the Minister stated.
Marci Acuña remarks: "The Geriatrics specialty in Lanzarote is not in any danger, where we will continue to have a national-level geriatric hospital, unique in the Canary Islands. The services of excellence and the number of geriatric beds are not in doubt and never have been," added the Minister, who then detailed: "What is not a rumor, but a reality, is the image of the shored-up basement of the Island Hospital that we found when we came to the Government of the Cabildo in June 2023."
In addition, the Minister criticized that during the previous term the construction of the "little hospital" was commissioned for 17 million euros, next to the José Molina Orosa, and that the option of allocating that investment - as the Autonomous Executive now intends - to the modernization of the old Island Hospital was not considered then. "A shored-up basement, facilities full of humidity and a technical report that warned about that terrible habitability. You knew all of it and ignored it," Acuña reproached.
The Minister of Social Welfare has warned of the irresponsibility of "launching rumors about a symbolic and beloved center like the Island Hospital, which will continue to offer the same excellence that it has exhibited for decades," although its provision will vary "TEMPORARILY" in location. And looking back, Marci Acuña has defined as "a true milestone" the management done by her party, CC, when from the island presidency, in 2019, she managed to seal an agreement with the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) for it to take over the management of the center. "That was really what saved this Hospital in the last decade, because since then its condition as a public service was guaranteed, something that you even opposed."
Marci Acuña made these statements in response to a motion by the Socialist Group seeking to urge the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands to "preserve and continue the health and care activity" of the center.
The works planned by the Government of the Canary Islands in the Island Hospital focus on the care area, which is very deteriorated, and not on the residential area of the facilities.
The Institution chaired by Oswaldo Betancort emphasizes that "in the supervision of public services that affect the citizens of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, we show the same diligence that we had when rescuing the third sector from ruin, after a 2019-2023 term full of inaction," concluded President Oswaldo Betancort.
