The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, during his official visit to Lanzarote, this morning toured the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital accompanied by the Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo, the manager of the Island's Health Services, José Luis Aparicio, and the president of the Island Council, María Dolores Corujo, where he was able to learn first-hand about the center's activity and how healthcare is being provided to patients with COVID-19 on the Island.
During the visit, he saw how the Health Area has been adapted to face the pandemic and current outbreaks, reinforcing its staff and modifying spaces to turn them into care areas. The authorities expressed their condolences for the death of a person on the island in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19.
Response to the coronavirus
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Lanzarote Health Area has hired 109 professionals, including doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, cleaners, etc., who are directly linked to the coronavirus, and converted spaces such as operating rooms into care areas that could respond to a possible increase in demand.
In addition, Lanzarote was the first non-capital island to have technology to perform PCR tests for the diagnosis of COVID-19.
For some time, the Health Area had a team of healthcare professionals focused on studying contacts of tuberculosis and bacterial meningitis who, with the arrival of the coronavirus and taking advantage of their previous knowledge, were converted into trackers in charge of analyzing the contacts of those who tested positive for COVID-19.
In recent days, 10 more professionals have joined this team of trackers assigned to COVID-19 to respond to the outbreaks that are occurring on the Island and thus manage to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Lanzarote has registered an increase in cases and currently exceeds 100 per 100,000 inhabitants, with an Accumulated Incidence (AI) in the last seven days of 103.7.
Health infrastructures
Since the beginning of this legislature, the Brief Admission unit in the Emergency service and the first phase of the Pediatric Intensive Care unit have been created and launched in Lanzarote, both at the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital.
On the other hand, the Management of Health Services of Lanzarote committed to carry out three infrastructures highly demanded by citizens and in which it continues to work intensively: a Radiotherapy Unit, which saw the start of the work delayed by the pandemic and is expected to begin at the end of the month; a Hemodynamics unit, which is currently in the contracting phase and it is expected that the work will begin in December; and a Health Center in Argana, which is currently awaiting the formal request to the City Council for the transfer of land for its construction.
Management and quality
The President of the Canary Islands also learned during the visit that since the beginning of this legislature, new services have been launched in Lanzarote, such as Vascular Surgery, the Registry of Advance Statements of Will, and the treatments of some thyroid and bone tumors using radiofrequency.
Regarding citizen participation, the strategic Plan has been activated with the participation of neighborhood associations and other involved social actors, and the Liquid Management project has been present on social networks to disseminate its activity.
Finally, it was reported that this year MIRs from Pediatrics and EIRs from Pediatrics and Family Medicine are joining. It was also highlighted that Lanzarote has been, for years, the only island in the entire Archipelago that trains Geriatrics residents and the only non-capital island that trains Pediatrics residents. Finally, it was announced that next year a request will be made to train MIRs in Internal Medicine and Surgery.
