Washington.– The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved a $ 39.5 million grant for the construction of a hospital in Vieques said today, Tuesday, the Democratic congresswoman Nydia Velázquez.
The New York representative at the congress said that FEMA informed him that an agreement was reached for the allocation of that money, which will allow the reconstruction of the health center, which was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, which has limited medical services in Nena Island
The Viequenses recently protested the death of the 13-year-old Jaideliz Moreno Ventura, who died at the Vieques Diagnostic and Treatment Center (CDT) after struggling for hours with seizures.
Last December, Congresswoman Velázquez and five other Democratic lawmakers asked the Inspector General of the Department of National Security to examine whether FEMA adequately fulfills its duty in the process of restoring health services on the Island of Vieques.
In a letter, the group of senators and congressmen indicated that FEMA listed the Vieques health center as an outpatient facility, not a hospital, which will reduce access to funds.
“It is unacceptable that US citizens in Puerto Rico continue to lack access to high-quality critical health services years after a disaster, and that FEMA has not taken rapid and robust measures to provide Viequenses with the necessary recovery resources that they have state and are being provided to other jurisdictions and communities, ”said Velázquez, Senator Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Robert Menéndez (New Jersey), and Raúl Grijalva (Arizona), Peter de Fazio (Oregon) and Bennie Thompson (Mississippi) .
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