The Vélez de Benaudalla Centro de Salud, or lack of it, has become a hot, local issue in the village for the coming municipal elections on the 28th.

There’s a large banner (provided by the Town Hall) on Calle Mariana Pineda, reminding those that read it that Vélez de Benaudalla has fought for its own medical centre since 2015. The Town Hall had ceded a plot for one to the Junta de Andalucía some time back.

As can be expected where politicians are involved, the two major parties; i.e., the PP and the PSOE are blaming each other.

In 2019 the socialist candidate for Mayor, Francisco Gutiérrez Bautista, won the Mayoralty. Recently, the PP candidate said that the medical centre had languished on the drawing board whilst the socialists ran the Junta but now that the PP under Juanma Moreno was at the helm, things would change.

However, as the Mayor pointed out, they hadn’t. He said, with calculated irony, that he couldn’t understand how it was that with the PP running the Junta; i.e., the administration responsible for providing such installations, the village still didn’t have a Centro de Salud.

Mayor Gutiérrez regrets that the subject of the medical centre should be used as ammunition during this election campaign, with the line that the Junta is going to do it (as if it were because the Town Hall responsibility) when it is clearly obvious that building it is most definitely the responsibility of the Junta.

Editorial comment: do politicians not realise that although they blame each other, they are collectively guilty for this delay?

(News: Velez de Benaudalla, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)