• Covid The Board will relax restrictions in municipalities with sustained drops in infections for 10 days

  • Covid The unfulfilled promise of María Jesús Montero to Estepona is made a reality a decade later by the mayor of the PP

"According to the forecasts we have, the works could begin at the end of the year and we foresee

an execution period of between 24 and 30 months

since the laying of the first stone. "The person who spoke these words in February 2007 was María Jesús Montero, current Minister of Finance and then Minister of Health of the Junta de Andalucía, who appeared before the media to announce the construction of the Hospital Center of High Resolution (Chare) of Estepona. A promise that would gradually burn through administrative stages and with which it was intended to solve the welfare deficit in an area in constant expansion and that in summer sees its population multiplied by the arrival of tourists. But the Andalusian Socialist Government He ended up keeping the project in a drawer, forgetting all the reports that argued the need for infrastructure. This Monday, 14 years later, it is finally a reality thanks to the efforts of the mayor of the municipality, the popular

José María García Urbano

, who despite the 300 million debt inherited, has been able to promote its construction exclusively with municipal funds.

According to the letter to which this newspaper has had access, on June 15, 2011, the then managing director of the Ministry of Health,

José Luis Gutiérrez,

signed a two-page document in which the autonomous administration desisted from the construction of a medical equipment that was an old claim from the western Costa del Sol.

After making a chronological tour of the procedure, he justified the decision in the existence of

"archaeological remains on the plot where the Chare would be located"

, which was considered "sufficient reason to renounce the conclusion of the contract" in compliance with the provisions of the Andalusian Historical Heritage Law.

The regional Executive, chaired at that time by José Antonio Griñán, anticipating criticism for his non-compliance, included in the letter that adopted said resolution "without prejudice to the fact that this Administration may tender a new contracting file under the conditions provided in article 139 of the Law of Contracts of the Public Sector ".

Although it was never resumed.

No other location was sought, nor were solutions sought in the eight subsequent years in which the PSOE continued to lead the Andalusian Government.

In this way, a "folder" was given - as the president of the Andalusian Government, Juan Manuel Moreno, assured this Monday - to a project that the Socialists described as "urgent" when Manuel Chaves led the regional government and whose processing began in February 2007, when the drafting of the base and execution project was put out to tender.

The words spoken by Montero only served to build an unfulfilled promise, because, although the

Andalusian Health Service (SAS)

requested the municipal building license in December 2008, and on March 13, 2009, with sufficient items in the budgets autonomous communities, the Governing Council approved the contracting of the works, the regional Administration canceled the contract to carry out the works.

Political revenge?

This decision, embodied in the brief previously shelled, was adopted two days after García Urbano took office for the first time.

Circumstance that occurred after eight years of socialist mandate, with two councilors and a case of corruption involved, so that in the popular ranks this resolution has always been interpreted as a political revenge.

Despite this setback, the current mayor decided to go ahead with the project and agreed with SAS that it would assume the investment to

build the Chare, as

long as the Board took charge of the provision of resources and personnel and covered the maintenance costs. .

Estepona initially had the support of the municipalities of Casares, Benahavís and Manilva, the Association of Municipalities of the Western Costa del Sol and the Provincial Council of Malaga.

They all agreed to contribute money, but little by little they were getting off the hook and finally it was the Esteponero City Council that paid the more than 16 million that the hospital has cost.

An investment undertaken despite the 300 million municipal debt inherited from the PSOE.

The accumulation of breaches by the socialist leaders has been filled with surreal statements and episodes to shake off any responsibility.

One of the most famous was carried out by Izquierda Unida (IU), partner of Chaves and his successors at the head of the Board, José Antonio Griñán and Susana Díaz, who came to assure in a statement that the hospital was not moving forward because the PP ruled the country at those moments.

"Only when we kick it out will it be built," said the left-wing coalition, which called it "electoralist" that the 'UTE' made up of councils of different political signs - two from IU - announced their interest in financing the construction.

The last candidate of the PSOE for mayor of Malaga,

Daniel Pérez,

during his time as territorial delegate of Health, denied in 2014 the need for this health infrastructure and assured that the residents of the municipality received the necessary assistance at the emergency points and in the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella.

This persistent opposition to a center that will cover 100,000 inhabitants, and about which Moreno Bonilla has said that it will partially solve the

"endemic evil of the lack of sanitary infrastructures on the Costa del Sol",

has continued with repeated claims about the provision of equipment and staff of the center.

Today, Monday, it was the general secretary of the Malaga Socialists,

José Luis Ruiz Espejo,

who has resorted to this argument to charge against the opening of the center.

The Chare de Estepona already welcomes its first patients.

These are patients with Covid-19 who did not develop a complex picture and who were transferred from the Marbella hospital center to release beds in the midst of

the

escalation of

the third wave of the pandemic

.

However, the

Malaga Medical Union (SMM)

has joined the critical voices and has censored what it considers a

"false opening"

because the Emergency Department is not yet operational.

José María García Urbano has considered this equipment a "milestone for the city" due to its "great relevance and significance" and being "a guarantee of quality of life and well-being" that complements the "process of modernization and improvement of services" that has experienced Estepona in the last decade.

The president of the Junta de Andalucía, for his part, took advantage of the inauguration to announce that another project "abandoned" by the PSOE since the time of María Jesús Montero will be tackled:

the expansion of the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella

.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • PSOE

  • Maria Jesus Montero

  • UI

  • PP

  • Jose Antonio Griñán

  • Manuel Chaves

  • Malaga

  • Susana diaz

  • ERE judgment

  • Andalusia

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CourtsThe Board avoids accusing a former high-ranking official in the ERE of the Sierra Norte

Corruption The Faffe commission, the commission of silence: only 7 of the 30 appearing parties cited have declared

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