Healthcare and Lanzarote, our lives depend on it

January 31 2017 (11:36 WET)

When one assumes the responsibility of presenting oneself as mayor of a town, one assumes, as it cannot be otherwise, the demands of the people who have placed you in that position, but the duty does not end there. I firmly believe that in addition to satisfying the needs of a town, making them one's own, the municipal government must be proactive and be clear that there are many citizen needs that do not become demands because residents are unaware of the rights that by right, worth the redundancy, they can demand.

Taking this truth as a starting point, I cannot agree more with the purpose of this association that was presented last Friday to demand from the Government of the Canary Islands a decent healthcare for the people of Lanzarote.

Now, that the newspaper archive is so often used, even in television programs, we should consult it to make clear the position of this mayor in reference to healthcare on our island and, as far as I am concerned, in Teguise and La Graciosa.

The solution that was given to the Costa Teguise Health Center, at the time, was presented to me as temporary, as this city council made available to the Government of the Canary Islands a land and the relevant licenses for the definitive location of facilities that by right must be carried out in this town, mainly due to the amount of population that resides there. And it is not only the case of Costa Teguise, it is also necessary and urgent in La Graciosa, where the facilities are clearly unworthy.

I hope and wish that this association that is born as "apolitical and social" is so, personally I will be there wherever they go, I join both personally and politically since I believe that all the people of Lanzarote born here or by adoption should be supporting this initiative that, as it is presented, only cries out for the fundamental rights of a people, of an island.

Issues such as staff cuts in emergency services, lack of technical means for the diagnostic resolution of diseases and their treatment, as is the case of the Radiotherapy Unit, the long waiting lists that we ALL suffer on our island, the lack of medicalized ambulances and, why not?, the lack of a helicopter based on our island to serve both Lanzarote and La Graciosa, highlights the repeated neglect that some politicians in this case, of all colors, have had with Lanzarote and La Graciosa.

As I say, I believe that all the people of Lanzarote must cry out with a loud and unanimous voice for a solution NOW for this issue, because our lives depend on it. From here, I make a call to the people of Lanzarote so that together with their families, they attend next Saturday the demonstration that will start from Calle Real at 11 am, where we will make clear that in Lanzarote we have only one voice.

As Randy Paush said: "If you don't get your dreams, you can still get even more by trying to reach them."

 

Oswaldo Betancort. Mayor of Teguise @OswaldoBetancor

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