War of words continues over plans for new hospital

THE war of words over the new hospital to be built at Son Espases continued in Parliament yesterday, when socialist spokeswoman Francina Armengol claimed that if the government had opted to reform the existing Son Dureta hospital, 80 per cent of the work would have been done by now, while “there are only almond trees” on the site of the new building. She accused Balearic leader Jaume Matas of making a one-sided decision to build the hospital in Son Espases, “without having justified it.” She also criticised the four year delay in construction and claimed that “it will mortgage the islands which will have to pay 150 million euros a year for the next 30 years.” But deputy leader Rosa Estaràs maintained that the new hospital could be ready by 2010, while reforms of the existing Son Dureta would not be completed until 2013. She also pointed out that the Partido Popular (PP) will have finished this term in office, with three new hospitals (Inca, Minorca and Formentera) open, and that of Son Espases under construction. And, she said, the health service motto of the previous coalition government could well have been “infrastructures zero, hospitals zero,” while that of Matas's government would be “infrastructures yes, hospitals, four.” Health minister Aina Castillo, for her part, accused the opposition of not wanting the new hospital.
Like Estaras, whe said that the coalition government had done absolutely nothing while in power, and now “cannot bear it that the current government should press forward with the hospital.” She advised the socialists that instead of criticising, they should look to Madrid and seek finance for the new hospital from the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Armengol rejected the criticism and claimed that the government “continues to lie over a process full of shadows instead of justifying the delay of four years during which they have rushed through infrastructures which destroy the landscape.”