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Government debt >>
Chemist risk closure hundreds of chemists in the Canaries face the prospect of closure due to the accumulation of bills owed to them by the regional health service.
An emergency meeting of Las Palmas’ chemists heard that the Department of Health had not paid the monthly prescription reimbursement for September and delays were also likely for last month’s bill. The total debt is believed to be nearing the €100 million mark and the government has admitted it is having difficulties raising the money. The chemists say they can no longer guarantee they will be able to buy in medicines from pharmaceutical companies and shortages “look very likely”.
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Meet tHe HMs Montrose The ship stopped over in Tenerife on her way to the Falkland Islands Page 06
CHRiSTMAS 2010
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Advent Calendar See our Advent Calendar for details of how to win a prize a day throughout december
FA SH ION
Hotel Mencey
A star is reborn visit santa Cruz’s only 5-star hotel
Finding Bob
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PROPERTY CONNECTIONS Pull Out
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18th November - 1st December 2011 / 1.80€ at Newsagents / www.islandconnections.eu / www.newscanarias.net Page 15
Edition # 656 /
Bob who suffers from Alzheimer’s, went missing – we speak to him and his wife
16 Page Pullout
Guide
el Hierro – life on the edge Residents CALL FoR soLidARity FRoM the otheR isLAnds
TV crews and members of the press are the only visitors to El Hierro today
By Barbara Belt
S
pare a thought for the islanders of El Hierro. As you read this, their tiny island may suffer another earth tremor of somewhere between 1 and 4.6 on the Richter scale.
It may go unnoticed. Before sensitive measurement was possible, thousands of similar seismic movements went undetected. The only certainty is that there will be nobody else on the island but the Herreños to notice it or not, apart from press crews. With the exception of those whose nerves routinely fray, most islanders will be largely unperturbed, having had over eleven thousand tremors in the last four months. Car men teaches threeyear-olds at Tigaday school in Frontera, where the strongest tremor to date, 4.6 on the Richter scale, occurred a few days
before we spoke. “All schools follow a strict procedure. We carr y on as normal thanks to that, although sometimes children are kept at home, or sent to other islands to stay with
grandparents, particularly after stronger tremors. It’s hard for young children to understand the importance of quickly obeying instructions, so we try to turn the whole thing into a
game. When I blow a whistle, they scramble to get under the tables as fast as they can. We sing songs until the all-clear, then line up holding a rope and go outside. A colleague
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checks to make sure there’s nobody left in my classroom. We do simulations outside too, Tremors could happen during playtime. “If it’s serious, the children will be bussed down to the Co-op building, and collected by parents. There’s a weekly school exercise, but we practice individually with our classes daily so that it all becomes automatic”. Carmen says her infants are unperturbed about volcanic eruptions. “They draw colourful pictures of volcanoes, not ominous black disasters. This has been happening since September and it’s become almost normal now. PEVOLCA have given information sessions all over the island. Schools have received ver y specific instructions. So has the entire community. The general mood is one of tense calm.”
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