TW

President Armengol announced yesterday that the new health centre in Pollensa will have 24 consulting rooms and be three times larger than the current centre. It will cost 1.8 million euros, and construction is due to start next September. The building plan is expected to be finalised in February.

Health minister Patricia Gómez thanked Pollensa town hall for its commitment to the project. The town hall has ceded the site to the health ministry - Can Conill on the calle Cecilio Metelo, which is currently used as a car park. The health centre will have six consulting rooms for general medicine, seven for nurses and others for paediatrics. There will also be two emergency consulting rooms and one for minor surgery.

The current health centre was built in 1990 and attends to 10,155 residents with health cards. Opposition parties at the town hall disagree with the location for the new centre. They argue that there is a more suitable site on the much larger Can Bach plot, which the town hall acquired earlier this year for more than half a million euros. It is behind the Renault garage on the same road as Can Conill and is also used for parking.

The president added that the new centre is part of the government's commitment to investment in health service infrastructure. This has amounted to 112 million euros over the past three years.