The Las Galletas health center seems a utopia difficult to achieve. And perhaps it is, after the events of recent months, when the Department of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands admitted that the matter has returned to the same point it was at ten years ago, a position that was confirmed by the person in charge herself. , Esther Monzón, in statements to this newspaper, in which she assured that they will look for “alternatives” after ruling out the option open at the end of the previous term, in Ten-Bel, and considering that the chosen place, a “shopping center” was not “ appropriate”. This is the tower of the urbanization.
However, he is not the only one. A few kilometers away, in Los Cristianos, the health center is located on the ground floor of a large commercial and residential center, the Valdés Center, despite the fact that the Arona Town Hall Years ago, it gave the Government of the Canary Islands a plot of land near the Official Language School, which has not taken a single step forward.
It must be taken into account that, a decade later and, at least four regional councillors, Las Galletas still does not have a health center, but not even a project or a space for it, after that two alternative locations have already been ruled out.
A clinic paid by the municipality
The current office, it is important to emphasize, remains open in a tiny location thanks to the contributions made by the Arona City Council for many years. To make this payment, in addition, it is necessary to raise, again and again, objections of illegality, since health care is not the responsibility of the municipalities, but of the autonomous governments.
However, the alternative would be to leave the 10,000 residents registered in Las Galletas without a health care point, referring patients to the center in El Fraile, a place that has multiplied its population in recent years.
“We believe that the current health center does not respond to the needs of the Las Galletas area and, therefore, we are looking for alternatives to find a land that is suitable for health use and in which we can build a health center,” he explained. Esther Monzón.
Regarding the shortage of available and classified land in that town to house facilities that have these characteristics, the Minister of Health said that “it is a complicated area, indeed, but we are working on it. We are in coordination and one of the first meetings I had when I arrived at the Ministry was with the mayor (Fátima Lemes, of the PP, as the regional leader) and there is interest because it is a real need.”
“A need that we cannot deny”
Esther Monzón added that “it is a need that we cannot deny and, of course, I would like to commit to telling the population that we hope to find land as soon as possible and that, of course, the director of the Canarian Health Service will make a project of construction as soon as possible to be able to give a response.”
Regarding the Ten-Bel alternative, he said that “it seems that the first problem is administrative. There seems to be a problem with the appraisal and, administratively, it is not so clear that it will be easy to do so. On the other hand, thinking about a health center on the ground floor of a shopping center is a bit shocking to us. “We are simply evaluating that file and other options, more appropriate places to be able to serve people.”
One of the big problems that exist in Las Galletas is the lack of appropriate land to make available to the Ministry of Health. Hence, the Ten-Bel alternative became the most viable in April of last year, when the then Minister of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, Blas Trujillo, and the mayor of Arona, José Julián Mena, visited a premises of about 1,400 square meters in the Ten Bel tower which, located on the ground floor, could house the new peripheral office, thus responding to a historical demand from the neighbors.
Previously, in September 2021, the then vice president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Román Rodríguez, was also with the former mayor, who visited the other location proposed by the City Council and which had been the headquarters of a banking entity.
