The candidate of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) for Lanzarote and La Graciosa to the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Yoné Caraballo, announced this Tuesday at a press conference that he will transfer 50,000 thousand signatures to the Parliament of the Canary Islands as a firm proposal for Lanzarote to have a medicalized helicopter.
Caraballo, who despite not yet holding any elected office has been demanding for years that this health helicopter be activated – dependent on the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) for Lanzarote, considers that the management of the eight deputies of the insular constituency of the PSOE, the PP, the CC and Podemos has been “absolutely useless” and characterized by “negligence and apathy”.
“The deputies are responsible for not having fought or agreed before the Parliament of the Canary Islands so that the population of Lanzarote and La Graciosa is also included in the emergency health services and transfers provided by these medicalized helicopters. In this issue, as in so many others, the representation of the residents of Lanzarote and the Eighth Island has been conspicuous by its absence because our parliamentarians have not exerted any type of pressure,” Caraballo stated at the press conference offered in the morning at the electoral headquarters of the Canaristas in San Baretolomé.
50,000 signatures
The Canarian candidate to the Parliament who, "for simple numerical arguments, already considered the decision to locate the medicalized helicopter in Fuerteventura illogical" months ago, recalled that at the beginning of 2020 he launched the campaign ‘Time is life’, "with which he has already managed to collect around 50,000 signatures, 50,000 signatures that demand that said tool, vital for critical patients who have to be transferred to Gran Canaria, be implemented and remain in Lanzarote", the political formation emphasizes in a statement.
However, Caraballo warned, “if there is no heliport in Lanzarote, logically there cannot be a medicalized helicopter for our island.” The NC candidate recalled in this regard that “for years we have been transferring to the Parliament of the Canary Islands and, above all, to the Lanzarote Island Council, that it is essential that Lanzarote and La Graciosa have their own base so that this medicalized helicopter, and that we hoped could sleep here, in a heliport that would serve as its base.”
On the other hand, it should be remembered that the new model of helicopters implemented in the Canary Islands, the Bell 412 EP, of which the Ministry of Public Administrations, Security and Emergencies recently presented six units destined for the Emergency and Rescue Group (GES), is already in the bases located on the islands of La Palma, Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, but this other type of vehicle “is not in Lanzarote either.”
70,000 euros unexecuted for the heliport
Yoné Caraballo has expressed his indignation after verifying, in addition, that the Cabildo itself already budgeted for said heliport for the island of Lanzarote with an item of 70,000 euros. “From Nueva Canarias we have even requested another heliport for Playa Blanca, in the south of the Island. We wonder what happened to the project that in May 2019 the Cabildo announced with great fanfare through the Security and Emergency Consortium,” recalls the Nueva Canarias candidate, “and that had a project and a feasibility report to build a 1,000 square meter heliport on one side of the Consortium headquarters, in Argana.”
Therefore, Caraballo rejects the “inactivity” of the Cabildo, and insists that "the Consortium firefighters themselves have repeatedly stated that having this service is an insular need because there are several heliports on the island but none have security and are only landing places.”
“Once again, Lanzarote and La Graciosa are left at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the islands. The fact that the Cabildo has not launched a heliport in our hospital at this point means, among other things, that the only medicalized ambulance that the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital has has to be used to transfer patients who need to be evacuated to the hospitals of Gran Canaria to the César Manrique-Lanzarote Airport, with the risk and lack of health care that this entails for the entire population, since during that transfer we are left without a mobile ICU on the entire Island,” Caraballo highlights.
The Canarian candidate has highlighted that in Nueva Canarias “we have been the only party from which we have demanded this medicalized helicopter for Lanzarote for years” and has announced that “of course this will undoubtedly be one of my main demands if I reach the Parliament of the Canary Islands after the elections on May 28.” “It is not fair,” he added, “that the citizens of Lanzarote and La Graciosa are at a disadvantage for continuing without a real and effective representation of their parliamentarians.”
Land for the Lanzarote heliport
For his part, Óscar Noda, candidate of the Canaristas for the Presidency of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and La Graciosa in the elections of this coming May 28, has committed in this same appearance to cede land and make it available to the Government of the Canary Islands so that Lanzarote can also have a permanent heliport base that prevents the Island from continuing to be, as until now, the only one in all of the Canary Islands that does not have a medicalized helicopter with its own base.
“It is regrettable that the parliamentarians for Lanzarote have not achieved something as basic and vital as a medicalized helicopter from the Government of the Canary Islands, and even more so that the current government group of the Cabildo has not acted to avoid this situation of grievance for our citizens by finally providing the Island with the necessary and essential installation for this, a permanent heliport base,” Noda stated.
As a candidate of the Canaristas for the Presidency of the Cabildo, Óscar Noda has lamented that “Lanzarote has had the heliport project already budgeted for almost two years” and that until now, “however, no one has lifted a finger to execute said infrastructure,” for which he has questioned the “null involvement of the current Island Government” and the “apathy” of the Lanzarote deputies, who “were supposedly supposed to have represented our residents and defended the interests of Lanzarote and La Graciosa in Parliament.”
