ACN
The Canary Islands Government Council yesterday approved a "package" of social investments, destined for actions in health, education and care for disadvantaged groups, exceeding 19 million euros, as reported at the press conference after the meeting by the Minister of Presidency and Justice, José Miguel Ruano, who yesterday intervened as "acting secretary", due to the holidays of the holder, Antonio Castro.
The bulk of this amount is directed to the Canary Islands health system, which takes 14.7 million of the total, also monopolizing most of the investment in the construction of a health center that will serve about 14,000 users in the Salamanca-Duggi area, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The works of this complex, which are budgeted at 11.6 million euros, will last 3 years and will include a health center, a specialized emergency care center, a mental health day center and the workshops and complementary areas of the Active Rehabilitation Unit.
The facilities will be located on a plot of the old Psychiatric Hospital and will have an area for patients of 2,200 square meters, within a building of 5,250 square meters, which will be distributed over four floors.
The purpose of the file is to authorize the multi-year expenditure to execute said work, as well as to contract the management of the same. The facility will have, when it comes into operation, a staff of 9 doctors, 2 pediatricians and 11 nurses.
It will also have 8 Family Medicine consultations, 2 Pediatric consultations and 8 multipurpose Nursing consultations, in addition to an area for women's health and pregnancy, equipped with a consultation, a lactation room and maternal education-preparation for childbirth.
The project also contemplates the creation of an area for Oral Health, which will have a dental consultation and a General Care area, with an extraction and treatment room.
The facilities dedicated to Mental Health will provide care both for Psychiatry and Psychology consultations, as well as for occupational therapies that will favor the rehabilitation of chronic psychiatric patients.
The second authorized expenditure in health matters will be allocated to the acquisition of hemodynamic material for the Doctor Negrín Hospital, in Las Palmas, for a value of 3,135,398 euros, which Ruano used as an example to draw attention to how expensive it is to "maintain quality levels in healthcare".
Four new schools
In the educational investment chapter, the Government approved allocating 3,356,000 euros to the projects -and construction in one of the cases- of four new Infant and Primary schools in areas of demographic growth included in the Southern Plan of the Ministry. Two of them will be located in Puerto del Rosario (Fuerteventura), another in Corralero (Fuerteventura) and the fourth, in Vecindario (Gran Canaria).
With regard to the competences of Employment and Social Affairs, Ruano reported on the granting of various subsidies to public and private institutions for the care of physically and mentally disabled and elderly people, for a total value of 1,156,496 euros.
Among these aids, those granted to various care centers for the disabled, mentally ill and Alzheimer's patients in the South of Gran Canaria stand out, for 276,000 euros; resources from Lanzarote for elderly care, including the expansion of 20 beds in this unit of the Insular Hospital, valued at 267,607 euros; 228,578 euros for the maintenance of different centers dependent on Cáritas Diocesanas in Tenerife, specifically for two day centers in La Laguna and one in Santa Cruz; 225,735 euros to help the Gáldar City Council in the maintenance of various programs related to the care of the elderly; and finally, a subsidy of 160,410 euros to the Casa de San Vicente de Paúl, which is also dedicated to the care of the elderly and is managed by the Daughters of Charity Company of Gran Canaria.
Apart from these actions in social policies, the Council approved another important investment, worth 1.1 million euros, destined to the realization, by the two Canarian universities, of a program aimed at promoting the competitiveness of the companies of the Archipelago, through technological innovation.