SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 29 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The spokesman for health matters of the Popular Group in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Miguel Ángel Ponce, has considered that the fact that the Canary Islands are the Spaniards least satisfied with their health system, according to the report of the Federation of Associations in Defense of Health Public, “throws down the self-promotion of the Government of the Canary Islands”.
Miguel Ángel Ponce indicated that the 2022 study evaluating the health services of the Autonomous Communities, carried out by the aforementioned institution, highlights the shortcomings of the Canary Islands health system by placing the Archipelago, along with Catalonia, as the second territory with the worst health from the country. “COVID can no longer be the excuse, since the virus has been present throughout the country, not just in the Canary Islands,” Ponce said.
The deputy emphasized that it is a report that exposes a situation that the Popular Party has repeatedly denounced and that “shows that, despite President Torres’s propaganda, the Canary Islands are among the five communities with the lowest budget healthcare per inhabitant.
In this sense, the popular deputy stated that, although there have been budget increases, “the management deficit that characterizes this government has made them insufficient to address the problems detected during the pandemic and to recover care for patients postponed during it. “. “It’s not just about money, it’s about management too,” he added.
Ponce denounced that this situation is “especially evident” in Primary Care, which “continues with intolerable waiting, with insufficient resources and with serious problems that make it very difficult for it to be the backbone of the Canarian health system.”
“Being among the three communities with the lowest ratio of Primary Care doctors in Spain, with less than one doctor for every 1,000 inhabitants, it is impossible to avoid the collapse of the service and the fatigue of professionals,” warned the deputy.
As a result, he assured that many Canarians are forced to go to hospital emergency services, where “waiting on a stretcher in a corridor is normal.”
RESCUE PLAN
For the PP deputy, “President Torres and those responsible for public health in the Canary Islands cannot continue to turn their backs on the serious shortcomings of our health that the report of the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health has highlighted “, for which he once again offered the Government the rescue plan for Canarian health, drawn up by the Popular Party.
According to Miguel Ángel Ponce, “Canarian health is suffering a socio-sanitary collapse, a collapse of emergency services, to which is added an overcrowding of hospital beds due to COVID that has not yet ended, although they try to cover it up, which makes accessibility to the health system and the waiting lists continue to run wild and that it will worsen with the arrival of summer and the staff’s vacations if measures such as those contained in the rescue plan for the Canarian health of the PP are not taken”.
In his opinion, “if we really want to reduce waiting lists, improve emergencies, strengthen social and health infrastructures and Primary Care, we have to put aside political sectarianism and implement this plan” which, he said, “supposes a qualitative leap to offer Canarians the attention they deserve, directing our health towards the 21st century, where in addition to the management of acute patients, it is necessary to improve that of chronic and elderly patients, also promoting measures to improve health public health and mental health,” he said.
At the moment, Ponce added, “our health is in a state never seen before, aggravated by the pandemic, with waiting lists that do not stop growing, with collapsed emergencies, with saturated and unmotivated health personnel with enormous lack of infrastructure. socio-sanitary, with Primary Care overwhelmed and, above all, with a management, in general, deficient that, despite the ‘million-dollar’ investments, fails to improve care for canaries”.
The deputy assured that the majority of Autonomous Communities, with the same pandemic, “have better health results than the Canary Islands with waiting lists for surgeries and tests even with half the days and better functioning of health centers and more social-health beds” .
