The insular vice-president, counselor for Social Action of the Cabildo de Tenerife and head of the Institute for Social and Socio-Health Care (IASS), Marián Franquet (PSOE), does not renounce that he Tenerife council has representation on the board of trustees that manages the Fundación Canaria Hogar Santa Ritaresponsible of the largest residence for the elderly in Spain. Franquet warns that “we are open to entering and collaborating with Santa Rita, for which we are drawing up an agreement to try to make management as transparent as possible. If they allow it, we will enter without any problem, but it seems that this will not be the case, at least while the current managing director, Tomás Villar, “continues in that position.” In his opinion, “this person is not the right person to manage a resource of this size.”
«We have formally asked the Fundación Canaria Hogar Santa Rita to enter the board of trustees that manages it and they have told us no. They have not argued to us the reason for their refusal and that, of course, leaves us concerned, “ warns Marián Franquet.
Regarding a future legal limitation on the number of residential places, Franquet indicates that “the trend is to have smaller and smaller centers, but Santa Rita has a different model with everything that is promoted nationally and internationally. When the time comes, the legal provisions will have to be analyzed. We believe that its structure is game, because it could house several residences in such a large space. We are very willing to collaborate in this change, but the Foundation must do its part ».
As a result of the delays in the payment of salaries to the staff, made up of some 450 workers, Franquet emphasizes that “Santa Rita has some management difficulties that do not occur in other entities. We have to know why it happens to be able to put solutions to it. What you can’t is to be eternally in the without living in which they have the workers, that one month they get paid, other months it takes a month and a half, and in two months they don’t know… The mortgages and the charges of the workers come punctually and they cannot continue like this ».
protest concentration
The Hogar Santa Rita Company Committee has once again called for today, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., a new protest concentration at the gates of the residence due to delays in the payment of wages. The representation of the workers wants to show their discomfort at the management of the Fundación Canaria Hogar Santa Rita, “in relation to the continuous delay in the payment of salaries and the helplessness that makes us feel that there is no guarantee so that this does not happen again in the following months”.
For the conveners, “once again the inability of the management of this Foundation is revealed, which has communicated in assembly to the staff that there is no guarantee to comply with the payment of salaries in the following months. The Board of Trustees of the Hogar Santa Rita Canarian Foundation continues without assuming responsibilities or offering any solution”. The 450 workers at Hogar Santa Rita received their January payroll on February 17. Delay in the payment of salaries that had already occurred in the months of April, July and September of last year 2022.
Regarding this new protest, Franquet insisted that “the company always tries to focus on the IASS as its main payer, but the reality is that we do not know who its main payers are because we do not have access to the information in a transparent way ». Every year, the IASS transfers around 6 million euros to the Fundación Canaria Hogar Santa Rita to maintain 374 concerted places.
