Aim to maximise use of Island health resources

Staff Reporter THE Balearic Health Minister, Aina Castillo, declared yesterday that the General Hospital in Palma will open the doors of its operating theatre on 6 October next, with the aim of helping reduce the waiting lists of some of Majorca's health centres. Castillo, who visited the General, Joan March and Psyciatric hospitals for the first time yesterday, reported that the first operations to be carried out at the General will be related to ophthalmology, orthopedics and urology. From 6 to 13 October, surgery for operations that only require local anaesthetic will be carried out; then after that date, the General will operate using general anaesthetic, reported Rafael Romero, the senior director of Gesma, a hospital management organisation. The Health Minister gave assurances that she had received requests from the General hospital to address the fact that very few operations were being carried out in relation to the facilities available which included “fully equipped teams of surgeons”. “The idea is to maximise the use of health facilities in hospitals throughout the Balearics in order to bring waiting lists down” she continued. Castillo remarked however, that the principal function of the General hospital will continue to be in the area of public health, which, she claimed, her department was in the process of reorganising. On the same theme, she drew attention to the production of a Health department “global plan” to verify the resources currently available in the public health sector, as well as a study on what financial investment is needed in Majorca's hospital network. The Health minister expressed satisfaction with the fact that the Balearics has been designated a region of “strategic health focus” by the central government Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs, since this measure acknowledges the Balearics' special island status, she said. Her department, she claimed, will try to “restore public confidence” and “overcome difficulties” that were triggered by the closure of the General hospital for its conversion into a public health centre. Castillo also reported that her department had undertaken some carpentry work in in Joan March hospital, where the poor state of the doors and blinds “had become unacceptable” to the staff and patients. The Health ministry will furthermore undertake to install air conditioning on two of the hospital's floors. The aim is to avoid patients ever having to suffer again, the excessively high temperaturs of last summer.