Despite protests by neighbors and no building permit as yet, the Ministry of Health is going ahead with its plans to build a new children’s hospital in San Borja. It handed the property over to the construction consortium on Wednesday.
The mayor of San Borja, Alberto Tejada, has argued that the zoning law of “other uses” does not include hospitals but Luis Castañeda, mayor of Metropolitan Lima, said there are no building restrictions in the area for hospitals. Neighbors fear an increase of street vendors and subsequent security issues resulting from outpatient and visitor queues, and believe the hospital should be built further south, closer to the areas it will be serving, namely the city’s southern cone of Villa El Salvador and Villa Maria del Triunfo.
However, the minister of health, Oscar Ugarte, said the current hospital –built 85 years ago, on Av. Brasil– will continue to attend to general cases while the new hospital will be largely for surgery and less common diseases. According to the director of the Hospital del Niño, Roberto Shimabuku, the hospital currently handles some 12,000 hospitalizations a year, and half of these –the grave cases– will be transferred to the new hospital.
The new hospital, to be built by INCOT Contratistas Generales, is to cost approximately $77 million and is scheduled to be completed by May 2011.
