Tenerife South Hospital Expansion Stalled, Frustration Mounts
The long-delayed expansion of Hospital del Sur de Tenerife continues to face uncertainty, with design plan tenders stalled and public patience wearing thin, prompting political calls for accountability.
The expansion of Hospital del Sur de Tenerife, a crucial project for meeting the healthcare needs of one of the island's most populated and active areas, remains in limbo. A recent meeting between the Canarian Health Service (SCS) and the 'Platform for a Public Hospital in South Tenerife' highlighted that the tender for the design plans is still stalled. This lack of concrete progress is causing growing public frustration.
The SCS requested the meeting to update the platform on the hospital's status. Adasat Goya, director of the SCS, and Óscar Díez, manager of La Candelaria Hospital, attended. They presented basic project plans to the citizen representatives, showing how services would be reorganized once the surgical area is expanded. However, the platform pointed out that this information didn't address their main concern: the project's ongoing delay.
After nearly two hours of discussion, and an invitation from healthcare officials for platform members to visit the Oncological Day Hospital expansion (which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks), the group expressed its dissatisfaction. They warned that the long period of inaction has forced the platform to "take a tougher stance due to the exhaustion of public patience in the South."
Separately, Tamara Raya, general secretary of the PSOE of Tenerife, met with the platform yesterday. Raya reaffirmed the socialists' commitment to expanding Hospital del Sur and building a social and health care center on land next to the El Mojón complex. The socialist leader argued that the South deserves a top-level hospital, similar to the university hospitals of the Canary Islands (HUC) and La Candelaria.
Following this, Raya announced she would ask the Minister of Health for the Government of the Canary Islands to appear in Parliament. Her goal is for the minister to explain "why projects that had already been agreed upon continue to be stalled." The PSOE general secretary reminded everyone that both the hospital expansion and the social and health care center had been agreed upon, with land, initial plans, and funding secured, during the previous socialist administration. She criticized that, two and a half years later, these initiatives remain blocked under the current leadership of Coalición Canaria and Partido Popular in both the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo de Tenerife.