Date Published: 01/12/2020
ARCHIVED - Opening of new pandemic hospital in Madrid met with protest not praise
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Health workers demand investment in medical staff rather than construction projects
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the regional government of Madrid, officially opened a new hospital on Tuesday morning in the northern outskirts of the Spanish capital, very close to the airport of Madrid-Barajas, but despite the coronavirus pandemic having highlighted the need for more investment in public health infrastructures this year her attendance was met by loud and vehement protests calling for her resignation.
The Hospital Isabel Zendal has been designed as a centre specializing in pandemics and has been hurriedly completed this year, in order (according to Sra Ayuso) to be prepared for a rise in coronavirus infection during the colder winter months. But its completion has been accompanied by criticisms over the lack of attention paid to adequately equipping the hospital, where no medical staff are yet officially employed and staff shortages are likely to make it difficult to open the entire complex for the foreseeable future.
The actual cost of construction proved to be around double the amount budgeted at a little over 100 million euros, and critics have also pointed to the awarding of a 6-month security contract for 808,000 to a company owned by a former PP party municipal councillor in Alcorcón, but the voices of protest have been raised mainly due to the lack of staff at the facility. The regional government states that the first patients will arrive in a few days’ time, but only one of the three buildings will be open, housing only 240 beds of the 1,000 which were promised in June.
Unions claim that of the beds to come into use this month only “three or four” will provide intensive care, and underlying their discontent is the feeling that what the Madrid health service needs is not new hospitals, but more staff working at the other 31 hospitals in the region. Hence their anger at the investment of more money in construction while little budget is made available for the taking on of medical professionals, a point of view shared by those who took part in a demonstration in Madrid on Sunday.
The entire hospital complex occupies an area of 80,000 square metres located close to the A-2, M-40, M-11, M-12 and R-2 motorways, while its proximity to the airport has led to it being put forward as a possible distribution centre for vaccines when they are flown to Spain early next year.
Images: Comunidad de Madrid