It appears that the Junta de Andalucía, apart from spending money on the new wing of Santa Ana Hospital, will also do so on the Salobreña medical centre.
According to the Partido Popular, which heads the Junta, both Salobreña and Vélez Benaudalla will receive funding for their medical installations with 2,382m euros for the former and 600,000 for the latter.
However, this announcement didn’t exactly impress the Mayor of Salobreña, María Eugenia Rufino, but rather it left her perplexed, in her own words. The Mayor of Vélez Benaudalla, Francisco Gutiérrez, was similarly bemused.
The reason why was that although they were both awaiting news that their respective medical centres had been included in the coming budget, they had not even been informed that a firm project had been drawn up, let alone funding earmarked.
The said Regional Budget has yet to be approved; something that appears to be in jeopardy ever since the leader of the PP tore his counterpart for Vox (an ally in the Regional Government) a new output for his digestive system during the Vote of No Confidence in the national parliament.
Plans for doing something about Salobreña’s inadequate medical centre began in 2016. The Town Hall ceded a 4,000 sq/m plot near the Policía Local police station and announced in 2018 that they had drawn up a plan for the new facilities. Then a year ago the Mayor met with the regional delegate for the Junta, Indalecio Sánchez Montesinos, to find out how it was going, but since then she had not heard a peep from the Junta, claims the Mayor.
So, the announcement caused her quite a bit of consternation because she had only heard it through the press rather than through official channels. She immediately got in contact with the Junta delegate, who assured her that he had heard nothing about it either – Sr Montesinos is not a politician but was put forward by the PP so perhaps it isn’t in the party loop, so to speak.
The Mayor’s suspicions were further aroused by the local Spokesman for the PP, Gustavo Aybar, who welcomed the announcement but who openly backs enlarging the existing medical centre rather than building a new one on the ceded building plot.
Lastly the Health Authorities for Southern Granada said that had not heard anything through official channels concerning a budget assignment for the Salobreña medical centre either.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)