SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 26 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, and the third vice president and counselor for Social Action, Marián Franquet, have informed the Association of Mothers and Fathers of Camp La Cuesta of the progress that is being made to start the works on the new center for people with intellectual disabilities and that include a budget increase of 68% to add 8.4 million euros.
The manager of the Institute for Social and Health Care of Tenerife (IASS), Yazmina de León, participated in the meeting, as well as the president and vice president of AMPA La Cuesta, Luz María Morin and Damián Meliá, and the association’s secretary, David Peña, among other representatives.
Pedro Martín explained that the construction prices of the new project have been updated, which “contemplates a significant increase in the budget to be able to undertake with quality guarantees the new services and common spaces that are going to be launched, which will help to improve the quality of life of the users”.
In addition, the tender for the project will include measures to avoid assigning the works to an abnormally low offer that makes it impossible to carry out the works for the contracted price, “as already happened with the first project awarded in 2018,” the president explained in a note.
For her part, Marián Franquet explained that the forecast is that the new works could go out to tender soon and recalled that among the improvements that are being contemplated is the provision of 30 new residential spaces, in addition to another 20 that already exist and 20 of day care, allowing resources to be expanded to provide full-time care as needed.
“This is an essential project for fathers and mothers who are in charge of people with intellectual disabilities and live with the uncertainty of what will happen when they cannot assume their care,” he said.
Likewise, the project includes the incorporation of a therapeutic cup as well as new spaces such as the kitchen, laundry and outdoor areas that were suppressed in the previous project to lower costs.
NEW COEXISTENCE UNITS
The counselor also added that “its implementation also favors the creation of new coexistence units, which allow continuity to the new, more personalized care model that is being promoted from the insular area of Social Action.”
In this sense, Marián Franquet recalled that all these improvements have been designed in accordance with the needs, demands and suggestions raised by the families of the users who are kept informed of the news.
The problems to start up the new La Cuesta center arose at the end of 2018 when the previous island government awarded the project to a company that presented an economic offer 23% lower than the bidding price, which made it impossible to carry out the jobs, say the insular government.
Once the expected execution period had elapsed, the current team of the Cabildo began negotiations to mutually agree on the termination of the works contract, of which only less than a third had been executed until then, and to urgently initiate the process to contract the drafting of the new modified project and resume work as soon as possible.