The PSOE has denounced this Thursday that the regional executive led by Jorge Azcón is once again postponing the direct connection of the new Hospital Obispo Polanco with the city of Teruel and that, according to current estimates, the access roads will not be completed until 2029.
The public company Suelo y Vivienda de Aragón has now put out to tender the drafting of a new project for the second phase of the access roads, after the previous one, which had been commissioned and approved by the City Council, presented technical problems, as the Minister of Development, Octavio López, acknowledged.
Socialist regional lawmaker Pedro Polo criticized that, after years of announcements and delays, the regional Government has still not awarded the drafting of the project needed to complete the connection.
The contract, which also includes the technical direction of the future works, has a budget of 478,459 euros, VAT included, and the deadline for submitting bids is extended until next 18 December.
"This is the chronicle of an announced botch. The PP governs in Aragón and in the City Council of Teruel and even so it has not been able to solve the access roads to a hospital whose location they have known about for more than a decade. They promised it would be finished in 2026, then they talked about 2028, and now everything points to 2029 or even 2030," Polo said.
The Socialist parliamentarian stressed that what the Government of Azcón has tendered is not yet the works, but the commission for the technical project that will make it possible to execute them later.
Once said project is awarded and drafted, it will still have to be submitted for approval, the work will have to be put out to tender, it will be awarded, and then built, with an estimated execution period of 18 months.
Municipal project and political responsibilities
The PSOE recalled that the City Council of Teruel gave the go-ahead in May 2024 for the project for this second phase, but its technical shortcomings have forced it to put the drafting of it out to tender again from the beginning.
"It had to be a PP minister who recognized that the project approved by the City Council of the mayor of her own accord did not work. Emma Buj is the political person responsible for this situation and the people of Teruel are the ones who pay the consequences of her poor management," Polo said.
The socialists emphasize that the City Council's commitment to access to the hospital dates back to a protocol signed in December 2012 and that, while the Government of Javier Lambán was building the new healthcare center, the City Hall did not move forward on the procedures that corresponded to it.
"Emma Buj spent years blaming the socialist government of Aragon for the hospital delays, while the City Hall was failing to meet its obligations regarding the access routes. When the PSOE left the regional government, the hospital was 90% completed. More than three years later, the PP still does not have a valid project to connect it with the city," the deputy lamented.
At present, the new hospital only has access from the first phase, a road of about 800 meters that links it with the N-420a. The second phase remains pending, which must allow direct arrival from the neighborhoods of Teruel via the Perimetral Road and the Avenida Conexión de Barrios, as well as enabling a safe pedestrian and cycling route from the city.
"It is incomprehensible that Teruel has a new hospital that its residents cannot reach on foot or by bicycle via a direct and safe route. The PP has been unable to resolve a basic infrastructure that should have been ready before the healthcare center opened," Polo denounced.
The socialist deputy criticized that, while the Government of Azcón and the City Council of Emma Buj accumulate announcements, missed deadlines, and failed projects, the public continues to lack adequate connection with its hospital.
Lastly, the PSOE has stated that it will request in the Cortes of Aragon the technical report that details the deficiencies of the municipal project, the cost derived from having to rewrite it again, and a realistic schedule for the execution of the works.
The socialists recall that the PP already rejected, in July, a parliamentary initiative that called for the same information. "People in Teruel do not need more announcements or more photographs of Azcón and Emma Buj. They need to be able to get to their hospital from the city. And what we know today is that, after all these years, the PP still does not even have the definitive project to do it," Pedro Polo concluded.