Adeje: Tourist Hub Grapples With Decades-Long Healthcare Shortage
Adeje, a major tourist hub, grapples with a "historical shortage" of healthcare services, including insufficient facilities and high patient loads, as a long-awaited new health center slowly moves from planning to design.
Thirty years ago, construction began on the Hospital del Sur. Yet, the island's most popular and growing tourist region still struggles with a major problem: not enough healthcare and social services to meet the needs of its residents and the many tourists who visit. A promised main hospital is still not fully built, and basic services like primary care, emergency rooms, and social support get worse every year.
Adeje is one of the southern towns hit hardest by this lack of healthcare facilities. Even though its population keeps growing, demand for medical care is rising, and the local council has tried many times, Adeje still doesn't have the second health center planned for the Costa Adeje area.
With over 50,000 registered residents and a steady stream of tourists, Adeje's primary healthcare system has barely changed in decades.
The town has just one health center in the main urban area and a small clinic in Armeñime. Neither has been expanded in over ten years, and they simply aren't enough for the town's current needs.
In December 2022, the Canary Islands' Health Ministry announced plans for a new health center in Costa Adeje. It would be built on a 6,000 square meter plot of land donated by the local council.
This planned building would cover 3,655 square meters and offer essential services like general medicine, mental health, physiotherapy, children's consultations, women's health, dental care, emergency services, and other specialized units.
Almost three years later, last summer, the Canarian Health Service updated the plan for the future Costa Adeje health center. This document outlines the healthcare needs, required spaces, and services it will provide. After that, they invited bids for the technical design project, which has now been awarded and is currently being developed.
Adeje's mayor, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, told DIARIO DE AVISOS that the current number of health centers shows the "historical shortage" the town has faced.
The mayor believes there's a long-standing delay in healthcare services that no longer matches the town's growing and diverse population. He stated, "We are owed a historical debt. We are the worst-equipped town on the entire Island."
Currently, the main health center in Adeje's urban area has 19 family doctors, 5 pediatricians, and 21 nurses.
The Armeñime clinic, which doesn't have emergency services, operates with limited staff and few rooms.
Figures from the SCS and the Health Ministry show that both facilities have over 1,900 patients per doctor. This is much higher than the regional and national average of about 1,500 patients per medical professional.
To help ease this overload, and because of the pandemic, the town council provided municipal buildings in 2020 to temporarily move the Mental Health Unit. The goal was to free up space in the main health center for new consultations. Local sources say this municipal investment was around 40,000 euros.
While the lack of healthcare in the southern region is a long-standing and systemic issue, Adeje's situation is especially noticeable when compared to nearby towns that have similar populations and tourist numbers.
For example, neighboring Arona, with about 85,000 residents and also a tourist hub, has a specialized care center, three health centers, and four local clinics.
Granadilla de Abona, which has a similar population to Adeje, offers better coverage with one health center and three clinics, despite facing similar circumstances.
Even smaller towns like Guía de Isora have more clinics and even emergency points.
The mayor says the available healthcare facilities show a "reduction in services," which he believes "directly affects the quality of life for Adeje's citizens."
The new plan also includes creating a new Basic Health Zone for Costa Adeje, expected to cover over 16,000 residents, which would better reflect the town's healthcare needs.
Currently, all healthcare is concentrated in one basic zone, serving over 47,000 active health cardholders.
The local council stresses that building the Costa Adeje health center is a "municipal priority" and a problem that has remained unresolved for almost two decades.