San Gabriel continues to shape the project to build a private hospital in Aranda de Duero, hand in hand with the Recoletas Group. The director of it, Enrique García, advances that his objective is to provide this center, with a capacity for 30 beds, with a training aspect of a university nature. “We don’t want it to be a typical hospital, but to have a university dimension, something that would give an intermediate city like Aranda a strategic boost,” he says, looking at two degrees: Medicine and Nursing.
Its roadmap involves creating a public-private partnership. In said union, the new public hospital would come into play, whose tender should be in the near future, and the private hospital, which will be built on land in the vicinity of the Ciudad del Bienestar residence, which is also managed by San Gabriel. Both would form the sanitary pillar. Of the educational one, in his opinion, the University of Burgos should deal with. “Why couldn’t Aranda host a university degree in Medicine or Nursing in a short time? If we unite the facilities of public and private hospitals, a very interesting offer could be made,” he defends. In the first instance, García considers that the UBU and the Junta de Castilla y León are the ones that should jointly make an offer. But if they don’t, he assures that from San Gabriel they have already had conversations with a private university “that has expressed interest in opening a campus here to be able to offer these degrees.” He emphasizes that this training would be an economic and social shock for Ribera. And, on a cultural level, “a small revolution that we want to see happen in Aranda”, always under the formula of public-private collaboration.
Until now, various municipal corporations have tried to get the UBU to install a campus in Aranda. As Garcia recalls, “we know that there is interest in the statements made by our mayor (Raquel González) that facilities have been offered to the UBU – those of the Virgen de las Viñas Civic Center – to open a nursing school.” However, the director of San Gabriel warns that “you cannot wait forever.” In his opinion, “this offer should be confirmed in the coming months, the movements have to be short-term.”
It is precisely in this context that the conversations that San Gabriel is carrying out with other universities are framed. “It’s a plan b, in case the official ones don’t bear fruit.” García maintains that “the UBU has to make a move, together with the Junta de Castilla y León” and, if finally the offer does not materialize, “in the private sphere, an official offer, of rigor and prestige, can also be made to a prestigious town like Aranda”.
“Illusion we harbor”. Aware that the plan will not materialize from today to tomorrow, García emphasizes that it is “an illusion” that they harbor and for which they are moving the keys of various collaborators, so that a joint initiative allows the riverside capital to have university training in the field of Health Sciences, key at a time when many professionals are needed. “This is not something isolated, but joint with educational and health operators to bring to Aranda an offer of national relevance”, he points out.
In this sense, he assures that the Medicine degree is the one that would generate the greatest social impact. To structure a study plan requires, among many other aspects, a series of requirements in terms of facilities and teaching staff by the evaluating agencies. “Obviously it’s not easy, that’s why it has to be done with top-level universities and the connivance of many specialists.” In fact, it advances that there have been conversations with doctors linked to the university field to be part of that possible study plan.
With regard to infrastructure, the private hospital, which could be ready in two years, will include 20,000 square meters of classrooms. In the first phase, the Gabrielist institution will start with three vocational training cycles in biomedicine, radiodiagnosis and clinical medicine that are already authorized. And in the second and third stages is when it should house the university degrees. “With that idea it is going to be designed, so that the university partner can be offered the facilities,” he ditches.