More than 7,000 islanders wait for a public square in the centers of social and health assistance from Tenerife. The figure, which has just been revealed by Marián Franquet, Minister of Social Action of the Tenerife Corporation, is the largest of the balances of the waiting lists for socio-sanitary places on the island. Franquet broke down these data in the Plenary Commission. The greatest demand is concentrated in the section of personal autonomy, with 4,000 applicants awaiting a vacancy in the island centers. It is followed by older, with 842 waiting for a daytime place and 1,300 for a residential. On telecare there are 600 islanders pending attention, while in disability there are 100 applicants awaiting daytime assistance and 215 from a residential plaza. In total, 7,100 Tenerife residents with total or partial dependence awaiting public assistance.
The last balance of the waiting lists for socio-sanitary places in Tenerife doubles the previous one provided by Marián Franquet herself. In February, the head of the Insular Institute for Social and Social Health Care (IASS) assured that there were “more than 3,000 people from Tenerife” waiting for the public attention offered by the centers of the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands. Franquet clarified in the last Plenary Committee that this new figure arises from the sum of two waiting lists, the one associated with the dependency policies of the regional Executive and another of the IASS. The socialist minister clarified that “important work” had to be carried out to “unify these two access doors” to the health care facilities of Tenerife in order to know the real number of applicants.
“The places that are offered do not meet the real needs of the island’s population”
Franquet detailed the new calculation of the socio-sanitary waiting lists in response to a question asked by the councilor of the Popular Party Águeda Fumero, who expressed her concern at the high number of people from Tenerife waiting for a public square. Fumero demanded “agile responses from this administration to solve this problem that generally affects very vulnerable sectors of the population, due to the historical lack of planning that different governments have carried out in relation to this area.” The popular counselor assured that the number of social and healthcare places offered in Tenerife “does not meet the real needs of the population” and referred to the Health Infrastructure Plan of the Canary Islands Government as “a document that is born out of date”, since “although the 100% of the places provided for in said Plan, they are not enough to attend to all the people who are waiting to enter the island’s social and health system ».
According to the official website of the Tenerife Insular Institute for Social and Socio-Health Care, «the Dependency Care Unit is responsible for managing the network of day and residential centers, elderly dependents and people with disabilities in Tenerife, which add up to around 4,000 places ». The Health Infrastructure Plan 2017-2023 foresees 2,655 new social health care places for Tenerife, of which 2,188 are residential and 482 are day-stay. The sum of existing and planned (6,655) is not enough to meet all the demand that currently exists on the Island.
Fumero stressed in a press release that “this is a demand that will never stop and we need the administration to work with adequate provision so as not to worsen the situation of vulnerability of the population that requires these services.” As an example, Águeda Fumero put on the table the results of a recent study that reveals that up to 341 people are hospitalized in the Canary Islands without their health situation requiring it, “simply because they cannot be inserted into the island’s social-health care system” . Added to this is the fact that, as the Minister Marián Franquet herself recognized in September, “in Tenerife there are empty social-health places”, something that for Fumero “is the direct responsibility of the Cabildo and shows a lack of efficient management of public resources in this matter ».
