The first operating theatres in the El Mojon hospital are finally open

After more than 30 years of waiting, the first two operating theatres in the El Mojón public hospital in Arona, in the South of Tenerife, were finally opened, with their first first patients who underwent "minimally invasive" ophthalmological surgery, according to the Ministry of Health.

The incorporation of major outpatient surgery to the portfolio of services, which the region has claimed for years, represents a leap in quality in the services of the hospital, which serves a reference population of more than 200,000 inhabitants of the municipalities of Arona, Adeje, Granadilla, Guía de Isora, San Miguel, Santiago del Teide and Vilaflor.

In addition to the first operating theatres, the pre-anesthesia consultation, the administrative and pharmacy area, and the waiting rooms with information screens have been put into operation. The next step will be the expansion of the surgical program to specialties such as gynaecology and traumatology from next month.

Natacha Sujanani, managing director of the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital Complex, to which El Mojon belongs, pointed out that “one of the priority objectives of the current management and the Canary Islands Health Service, is to complete the portfolio of services of the South Hospital, so that it results in good quality of life for the patients, bringing the services closer to the population and avoiding having to travel to La Candelaria.”

The Hospital del Sur has 116 beds installed and its portfolio of services includes outpatient consultations for medical and surgical specialties, telemedicine, tests for diagnosis and monitoring of pathologies in different specialties, digestive endoscopy, multipurpose day hospital, Emergency Service, Radiology, Rehabilitation Service, Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy. It also has a laboratory, pharmacy and rehabilitation gym.

Historic demand:
Although the demand for a public hospital in the South dates back to the 1980s, it wasn’t until 1996 that a group of citizens stepped forward and created a platform for demands to give visibility to their request.

The Chío Cultural Centre, in Guía de Isora, hosted a historic meeting between the members of the promoting commission on July 18th of that year (Jordi Esplugas, Bárbara Rodríguez, Emilio Lentini and Segundo Marcos), with different associations. There the first seed was planted that would eventually grow in the form of a platform that has become the most valid citizen collective in the Canary Islands.

Construction of the complex has been plagued by political and technical obstacles. The company Sacyr, responsible for the works of the third phase of the building, stopped work in November 2016 and requested a 10% increase in the budget, estimated at 8 million euros, which led the Ministry of Health to open a file resolution for breach of contract, a procedure that, together with a subsequent negotiation with the construction company, led to a delay in the works.

In 2020, the professionals of the Hospital del Sur attended to a total of 45,687 emergencies, carried out 111,588 face-to-face consultations and more than 1,000 admissions to wards were carried out in their hospitalization area. An activity that was completed with the performance of 1.5 million analyzes, 53,000 ultrasounds, 5,400 CT scans and 1,900 magnetic resonances, according to the data provided by the Ministry.