A 70-year-old former banker does not want a medical centre to be built in Münster because his holiday apartment is in the Valais village. Because of this refusal, the municipality in the Goms valley is unable to solve its problem of a shortage of doctors.
Commons/JoachimKohlerBremen
No time? Blue News sums it up for you
- A pensioner is preventing the construction of a medical centre in Münster in Valais through numerous objections.
- This is important for the Conches region, where there are only two family doctors left, both over 70 years old.
- The 70-year-old former banker has a holiday apartment 100 metres from the planned construction.
- The chairman of the municipality complains that the grounds for the objections are flimsy. The purchase of the apartment by the municipality has so far failed due to the pensioner’s high demands.
There are certainly several oppositions that are holding back the construction of a medical centre in Münster in Valais, but they all come from one and the same person. However, the former banker does not even live in the municipality of Conches, but in the canton of Solothurn. But the septuagenarian has been fighting the project “from the very beginning”, writes “Blick”.
Construction is urgent, the newspaper continues: in the region there are only two family doctors, both over 70 years old. This modern centre should on the one hand attract new young doctors. On the other hand, the health service should also move in and a housing project adapted to the elderly should be implemented.
“The patterns are sewn with white thread”
The fact that things are not moving forward is really annoying the president of the Conches Valley commune: “It is incredible that one man could prevent such an important project for the community,” laments Gerhard Kiechler in the columns of “Blick”.
The pensioner is worried, for example, about the historic part of Münster, which would not be affected at all, according to Kiechler. His holiday home is 100 metres from the planned construction site of the medical centre, but there is also a supermarket, a school and a fire station nearby.
The pensioner also complains that traffic noise could increase as a result of the construction. Kiechler counters that the cantonal road is already very busy, as it leads to the Furka, Grimsel and Nufenen passes. “How much more noise could there be?” he asks, before replying: “The motives are obvious.”
According to him, the proposal to introduce a 30 zone did not bear fruit, nor did an offer to buy the holiday apartment. The price did not suit the former banker: according to “Blick”, he is demanding almost 500,000 francs for his 3.5-room apartment, which would be higher than the cost of apartments usually offered in the region.
