Whatever happened to the new La Línea Hospital?

Demo in April
(Banner reads: Where's the
hospital money gone?)

LA LÍNEA  The new hospital was supposed to be operational towards the end of 2012 but building work came to a stop over a year ago. There was a massive demonstration on April 25 this year. It would seem that a facility created to take care of the health of well over 100,000 residents of Jimena, Castellar, San Roque and La Línea, in the main but in fact covering the Eastern end of the Campo de Gibraltar, has become a pawn in the increasingly shameful game of ping-pong between the two main parties, PP and PSOE. It was the former that got things started during the notorious mayorship of one Alejandro Sánchez García (the same one who wanted to establish a toll at the Gibraltar frontier), who took over from his predecessor when the latter was removed by the courts. Sánchez was turfed out at local elections in 2011 by a victory of the PSOE, with Gemma Araujo as Mayor. In the playground atmosphere of local (and national) politics*, the hospital was kicked into touch, no doubt because it had been a PP project to start with.>>>

And now it is the PP who had a motion approved at the provincial level (that's Diputación de Cádiz, run by the PP, which spends much time flinging things at the Junta's spokes - run by PSOE) recently, aimed at getting things  at least at this level to finish the blessed hospital.

However, the hospital is under the aegis of the Junta's health service, the Servicio Andaluz de Salud, or SAS, and the fear exists that the hospital will be downgraded to a major, but local, health centre instead of the regional facility that was planned when building began in 2010.

As yet, there is no real news on the subject, and none can be expected until the end of the summer, when the Junta's Government Council returns from its holidays. Just a couple of months on a matter that has been over twenty years in the making - or rather, in the non-making.

No change in the playground, then.

*Playgound politics: children throwing stones at each other over big and little matters. 'Please, Miss, he threw a stone at me, Miss.' 'She started it.' 'No, I didn't, he did.' Meanwhile, time and effort and money gets spent doing nothing except paying their wages. At a time when there should be a widespread effort among all parties to get us out of this mess.