Lolita Dabán. Midwife of El Toscal

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1918-2002

María Dolores Dabán de la Concha (Madrid, 1918-Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2002), better known as Lolita Dabán, was a highly regarded woman in the city, especially in the El Toscal neighbourhood, for her work as a midwife and assistant at the births of many women from low-income families who could not afford, in the post-war period, a clinic or a private doctor.

Lolita Dabán, widowed at a very young age, enrolled in the Nursing School of the Faculty of Medicine of Cádiz, specialising in Midwifery, studies which at that time were exclusively undertaken by women. Upon returning to the island, she secured a position at the former Civil Hospital of Santa Cruz, where she worked for 56 years, combining her profession with work at the Llabrés Clinic.

At her private home at number 8 La Luna street, where there is now a plaque in her honour, she attended those who sought her help, and also travelled to the homes of the poorest residents in the area, which in El Toscal during that post-war period were many.

With her affable manner, she established a relationship of mutual trust with the labouring women, demonstrating her great human values. Her work was recognised by the Cabildo Insular, which awarded her the Institution’s Bronze Medal in 1962. The Santa Cruz City Council named her an Adoptive Daughter and gave her name to a street in 2003, a year after her death.

But the true tribute is the one the people of El Toscal pay her through their memory of her selfless work on behalf of a less privileged sector of the population. Many years of altruistic help in those happy, sometimes complicated and always important moments at childbirth, when people begin their journey in the world.

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