Workers at the Dr. José Molina Orosa Hospital have denounced the "lack of parking spaces" in the hospital's parking lots. Employees describe the situation as "unsustainable" and criticize the continuous problems that patients and workers face on a daily basis when approaching the Health Center. "We arrive late for our consultations, tests, treatments or surgeries, as do the patients," they have assured. In addition, the hospital staff also emphasizes the presence of the Local Police in the area. "They regularly come to fine improperly parked vehicles," they added. These fines are due to the "dozens of cars and motorcycles" that have to park "inadequately" due to "not having enough parking spaces in said center," they have pointed out.
It seems to me a... shame, that I, with my father, who had his leg amputated a few months ago, and my mother, who has reduced mobility and needs a wheelchair to go to consultations or blood tests, never have anywhere to park the car. And for medical reasons I have to go to the hospital with both of them several times a week! On top of that, they have been fining people parked in a row where they are not bothering anyone for weeks.
In 2021 I remember having to go to outpatient consultations. At 8 in the morning, many patients, some with serious illnesses, went to the ground floor for blood tests and left 15 minutes later with the gift of a fine. Yes, we parked on a yellow-painted curb. But what they did could be called a meanness.
I was fined 200 euros last month, I with reduced mobility have no other choice because there were cars without a card parked in the parking spaces reserved for the disabled. I explained my complaint to the police and they replied that they understood me but that they could no longer cancel the fine.
My case (based on real events). 2 months ago I had the misfortune of suffering a domestic accident: Trying to climb the pergola of my house using a folding ladder, the ladder loses its support and I fall backwards to the ground from a height of 2 meters. A heart-rending scream that startles my wife and she comes to my aid. We go to the Emergency Room promptly. My wife leaves me at the doors of the Emergency Room while she goes to find a parking space. She parks where she can. I am diagnosed with a fracture of a lumbar vertebra. We leave the hospital with a corset that I will have to keep for three months. Upon arriving at our vehicle we find a little paper on the windshield. Fine. We return home with a fractured vertebra, a corset and a 200 euro fine. Very happy.
It is estimated that several dozen fines have been issued for improper parking on the hospital grounds, between Monday and Wednesday alone, something that did not happen before.
President of the Lanzarote Island Council: "Our commitment was to respond as soon as possible to an urgent demand for hospital users, but we are also aware that access to the center must improve and, therefore, we are already looking for alternatives to improve parking and access to the Lanzarote General Hospital, both for patients and for staff or suppliers who access it." "The decongestion of the access areas to the Dr. José Molina Orosa Hospital in Lanzarote will continue to be one of the commitments to be fulfilled in health matters by the Government group."
The Arrecife City Council flatly denies that there is police fixation against health workers or anything like that. On the contrary, sources close to the City Hall value the great work they do to improve and care for the health of the people of Lanzarote.
Manager of Health Services in Lanzarote. No press statement on record.
Director of the Lanzarote Health Area. No press statement on record.
In 1989 the then-called General Hospital of Lanzarote was born. It was a much-awaited child, as its birth was very necessary for the island's health needs. So much so that the birth was induced, out of necessity, and it was born prematurely. There was an urgent need for this hospital to be born. And it was born. And also, due to the haste, it was born in an unsuitable place, in an industrial area. Industrial area of Arrecife de Lanzarote. It is the only hospital in Spain built in an industrial area. The new hospital, having been born prematurely, was, from the outset, small. From its beginnings, the hospital soon found itself overwhelmed by the population increases that the tourist industry, as a machine that never stops and that does not stop accelerating, implies.
A growing number of workers came to our island to make a future for themselves, a greater number of children of these workers needed an education and the number of patients who came to our small and newly born hospital increased enormously. Staff increases and hospital structure expansions became necessary. Our overloaded hospital. And the population increases did not stop. In a period of 15 years the population increased enormously. It was a real demographic explosion such as had rarely been experienced before in our country.
Our little hospital never complained. It was a brave, tough hospital. New structures were added to its body, which was already beginning to feel heavy, its facial expression began to sadden because it felt that even with its good will to fulfill its function of welcoming the island's patients so that medical professionals could cure or alleviate their ailments, it felt, it observed, that it could not. It wanted to, but it couldn't. The politicians had pressured it so much to continue striving to fulfill its mission, but, no, it couldn't, its body, its structure, already small in the beginning, had become unusable to fulfill its mission. And it fell into depression. Its depressive state spread to the professionals who worked inside.
They couldn't either, because the pressure was too much and, although it was conveyed to the politicians that a solution had to be found to this catastrophe, the politicians did nothing. They did not go to the Canarian Parliament to convey to the Canarian Government that our small hospital was dying, that it had already striven more than necessary. And it is not understood that the solution does not appear in this legislature because now both the political leaders of the Arrecife City Council, the Lanzarote Island Council and the Canarian Government all belong to the same political coalition: CC-PP Coalition. It would be an ideal moment to solve this problem because there is no political opponent to hinder the actions necessary for its solution.
To make a decision to alleviate the torment of our dying hospital. This already announced death is reflected in all the hospital's activities: waiting lists, lack of operating rooms, lack of space, deficient health care for our sick relatives and ourselves, and,... lack of parking. And here come our authorities who are a shining example of solidarity with us, with us when we get sick, and they fine us. They do not fulfill their function as politicians, which is to do what is necessary, and we have a great need for our health to be cared for and for our heroic hospital to be allowed to die and be replaced, finally, by a new hospital in a place where the people of Lanzarote, those who worked hard in life in this blessed island, can die in peace, looking at a horizon of rough seas and dormant volcanoes.
