The Hospital del Sur will be the third reference in Tenerife with an investment of 40 million euros to expand it by 20,000 square meters, up to 47,000; double the current 130 hospital beds and provide it with more health services and specialties. This will be equated to the university hospitals of Canary Islands and Our Lady of Candelaria.
The regional government and the Cabildo signed the second addendum to an agreement whereby the Island Corporation cedes land and the structural building that forms part of the health complex, while the regional Executive delivers to Tenerife the barracks that formed the old Attention Center and Especialidades El Mojón, where the socio-sanitary center included in this project will be built.
Ángel Víctor Torres and Pedro Martín, president of the regional and insular executives, respectively, signed the document in the presence of the Minister of Health, Blas Trujilloin dependencies of the Hospital del Sur, where they announced that they hope to start work this year. The expansion will affect 20,000 square meters and the remodeling of another 8,000.
“Today (for this Wednesday) is a very important day for the southern region of Tenerife, for the entire island, for public health and to respond to the people of this place,” said the President of the Canary Islands, who maintained that “this is now unstoppable. It cannot be stopped because it is closed with the signing of this Wednesday and with the budget commitment, with its own funds, European funds and the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism”.
Ángel Víctor Torres stressed that it is “a day to be happy to close a fight and a long-term commitment.” At this point, he referred to Teresa Cruz, Minister of Health whom he dismissed, to “thank her for her work, because she saw with the Cabildo the need to reformulate this agreement, to turn it around, to make it better.”
“Today is a very important day for the southern region of Tenerife, for the entire island and for public health”
This reversal occurs with the second addendum to the collaboration agreement, which refers to the settlement of the obligations for which the Canarian Government finishes transferring 22 million to the Cabildo de Tenerife derived from the construction of the hospital and social health complex of the South and the specialized care center (CAE), as well as the transfer of ownership. After pointing out the signing as “proof” of the benefits of collaboration between administrations, Torres explained that “the work that had to be done has been done and it was not easy. Our will is now to complete a task that began decades ago.”
What does the second addendum mean?
On December 29, the Government Council of the Canary Islands authorized the signing of this second addendum, at the proposal of the Ministry of Health. This agreement Its purpose is the modification and extension of the agreement that allows the exchange of the plots assigned to each administration and the updating of the settlement and the annual payments provided, as well as its extension. until December 31, 2023.
The Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) and the Cabildo de Tenerife signed in 2019 the first addendum to the collaboration agreement, signed in December 2018, for the financial settlement of the obligations contracted during the construction of the Hospital del Sur de Tenerife and the realization, by the insular Corporation, of the patrimonial operations necessary to transfer to the SCS the properties destined for sanitary uses.
This second addendum includes the assignment to the SCS of the plot that had been assigned to the Cabildo in the agreement because that location was the most suitable for expanding the Hospital del Sur. For this, the Cabildo de Tenerife will process the registry grouping of the farms and will initiate the legal mutation file, a necessary condition for the transfer of property to the Autonomous Community.
Following the signing of this second addendum, the Ministry of Health will undertake the expansion of the Hospital del Sur de Tenerife in order to continue strengthening healthcare for the population residing in the region and provide an adequate response to current and future healthcare needs.
A time in which the work of the Public Hospital Platform for the South and Southwest of Tenerife has been fundamental. Its representatives, headed by Jordi Esplugas, were informed of the new situation at the center when they joined a meeting in which, in addition to the president of the Canary Islands, the insular president, Pedro Martín; the Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo; the mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena; the director of SCS, Elizabeth Hernandez; the island councilor for Social Action, Marián Franquet, and the manager of the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital, Natacha Sujanani, among other attendees.
“There are many years and I think it was already good.” With this expression, the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, alluded to the fact that this Wednesday “a step was taken that has to be the definitive one to stop talking about a need and complete a real hospital.” He explained that the Cabildo handed over to the Executive regional government a building in an advanced state of construction and ceded the land for a possible expansion in the future. From his perspective, expanding the portfolio of services in response to the demand of the population of the South “will also mean an improvement for the reference hospital, ‘La Candelaria”. He claimed that “this has to be the definitive step”.
“This step has to be the definitive one to complete a real hospital”
The agreement signed this Wednesday allows not only to promote the completion of the Hospital del Sur, but also allows the Cabildo to build a socio-sanitary center in what was the CAE El Mojón, space transferred by the Canarian Government to the Island Corporation in the act held this Wednesday. This was recalled by Martín Domínguez, who announced that the drafting of the project will begin immediately with the purpose of enabling the maximum number of places allowed by the regulations: more than 200.
“The desires of three decades are much closer as of today: to have a hospital of the highest level,” said the mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena, in whose municipality the Hospital del Sur is located. He stressed that the signing of the addendum to the agreement embodies the response to the health demands of the region, a rubric that “will be the real and definitive impulse that is needed for us to have first and highest level services.”
Do not delay the deadlines, use the abbreviated and urgent route for the drafting and start of the works, that the center becomes independent and has its own budget in 2024 and that the Hospital del Sur is a reference at the end of the next term (2027). These were the essential proposals that the Platform put on the table this Wednesday in the meeting with the authorities. Jordi Esplugas explained it as spokesman for the citizen and social group, who perceived “real interest” on the part of the Canarian Government and highlighted the “always fundamental” role in the process followed to provide the South with this hospital complex. Even so, he warned that they will remain vigilant in fulfilling the commitments.
Hereinafter
With the signature registered this Wednesday, the Ministry of Health will build a new building that will increase the surface area of the current center by 20,000 square meters and another 8,000 to reorganize the spaces, until reaching a total area of 47,000 square meters. It will invest about 40 million euros in it.
These works will allow the incorporation of new care services such as intensive care units (ICU) for adults and pediatrics, a specific area for Pediatrics, a Dialysis service, a Day Hospital and the expansion of the surgical area and other services, such as a Pharmacy, in addition to create warehouse and workshop areas and administrative and management areas. Everything will complete the regionalization of specialized care in Tenerife through its geographical approach to the population of the south and southwest.
This new building will be connected to the rest of the structures currently in operation to create a total solution for the hospital needs of the citizens residing in this area.
The effort
The Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo, looked back to value the work done so far. He referred to the month of April 2021, on the occasion of the “first major outpatient surgery”, which was in the specialty of Ophthalmology. Since then, “and despite the pandemic,” The more than 1,500 workers assigned to the Hospital del Sur carried out some 4,500 operations, attended 55,459 adult and 11,651 pediatric emergencies and there were 122,457 consultations, of which 56,656 are first consultations and 65,801 are successive. Currently, Health is working on the tender for the project of a dialysis unit with 16 posts, with its own space, consultations and specific devices to promote home dialysis.
“Here we have continued to work in a remarkable and notorious way to improve citizen care,” said the counselor, who defends that with the project that is being announced and the expansion of the planned service portfolio “we are going to make an exponential leap in attention to the population of the south of Tenerife”
