The Tenerife Medical Union proposes as a solution to the problem of the hundreds of elderly abandoned in health centers: to use the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Fairgrounds to receive them. This was stated yesterday by the general secretary of the aforementioned entity, Levy Cabrera, in statements to Radio Club Tenerife. Specifically, the idea is for the infrastructure to be a kind of campaign socio-health center, “a kind of adapted Zendal and it would not need all the infrastructure of a hospital bed as was done in the Madrid Zendal”. In his opinion, the necessary work could be carried out quickly and at a lower cost, with the aim of having socio-sanitary beds available in the short term.
The union also put on the table the formula of using hotel beds. This path seeks a temporary solution. In addition, they raised the possibility of establishing a negotiation with the concerted health system to quickly alleviate the current situation. Another of the points in which the doctors stop is in the data of the Ministry of Health, on which they disagree. In particular, this department had pointed out that there are 330 people in a hospital bed after being discharged. Doctors place the figure in the environment of 400 patients in the Canary Islands.
Just yesterday, the spokesman for Canarian Coalition in the Cabildo, Carlos Alonso, pointed out that the lack of social health places causes another series of problems, “such as those denounced by the doctors’ unions, where there are people occupying places in hospitals due to the lack of social health beds.” And he added: «In Tenerife there are 208 people in hospitals occupying a bed because their families do not want or cannot take care of them. It is a very serious situation.”
Last Friday, the island councilor for Social Action of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Marián Franquet, highlighted the boost that has been given to nine centers included in the Social and Health Infrastructure Plan, “whose works will be tendered or executed before next June” . Franquet highlighted the work carried out in recent years to unblock the Social and Health Infrastructure Plan and recalled that “in 2019, despite having been approved for two years, there was not even a planning and organization to be able to execute it, which forced from scratch in many cases, devoting many hours to resolving multiple incidents of an urban and administrative nature».
Works of two centers
The counselor stressed that, to date, the works of two socio-health centers in the North are already underway, “to which a third must be added in the South, whose works have already been awarded” and is pending which may begin in the coming weeks. One of the most advanced projects is that of the Santa Úrsula center, which will allow the creation of 70 new places, 40 residential and 30 day centres, and for which there is a budget of 534,312 euros.
Part of the work to expand three municipal management infrastructures in La Victoria has also begun. Specifically, these are various actions that are included in the agreement that the Cabildo and the City Council signed in March this year, for an amount of 2.4 million euros to increase the number of care places by 44.
