She often travels to the peninsula to treat the "liver cirrhosis" that, according to Rosario González, she suffers because it took too long for an endocrinologist in Lanzarote to attend to her. Now, every time she goes to the specialist in Barcelona, she takes the tests of colleagues, patients of this specialty, so that they can review their results, because according to González with "the long waiting lists that are here, it takes months, and years" to be attended to.
It is one of the stories that they tell from the Thyroid Charity Association of the Canary Islands and they assure that it has become a general tonic that endocrinologists from various points of the peninsula, voluntarily, treat the patients of the island. "I send tests by fax," confirms Rosario as a patient. For this reason, the group has once again highlighted the need to bring one more specialist to Lanzarote and ask for the involvement of the Canary Islands Government.
Before leaving his position as director of the Health Area in Lanzarote, Juan Manuel Sosa stated that in three months the island would have two endocrinologists. But to this day the position remains vacant and, according to the group, from the management of the Health Area they have explained that so far they have not found a professional to fill the vacancy.
They appeal to the need to have two specialists due to the long waiting lists that are forcing patients to look for alternatives outside of Lanzarote. "But many cannot afford it, like me who is so lucky," explains Rosario González, who next week will travel back to the peninsula to go to a Catalan consultation.
"Last week I sent a letter to the Ministry of Health again and the 3,300 signatures that we collected in the past months to request a second endocrinologist. I know that the competencies belong to the Government of the Canary Islands, but, as you can see, they only criticize each other and the patients have to fend for themselves as they can," González denounces on behalf of the more than 300 patients that the association has.
"People are having to go outside the island, there is no way they will answer," claims the representative of the Association. "Now what I am going to ask is that people be referred to telemedicine." It is one of the solutions they propose while they find a worker to fill the endocrinologist vacancy at the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital. "That they refer them to private healthcare".
After contacting the management of the Health Area, they have a reinforcement endocrinologist who attends on the island on weekends, but they consider it insufficient.
Now, they have started a search on their own, given the "lack of response" from the Administration. "We have written from the Association to all the medical associations in Spain, to publicize the shortage. To the embassies of Argentina, Portugal and some others so that on their bulletin boards they put the lack of endocrinologists in Lanzarote, in case someone wants to come and work on the island. We maintain contacts with some Thyroid researchers from Spain and Argentina and they are contacting endocrinologists," González lists, hoping that the vacancy will be filled.
Without endocrinologists
Last November 14, Lanzarote celebrated World Diabetes Day without an endocrinologist. In August the specialist resigned and it took months to find a professional.