Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Residents and politicians from SAN Miguel de Salinas, Los Montesinos and the surrounding areas protested against the lack of family physicians and the long waiting list at Torrevieja Hospital on Wednesday.
Demonstrators blocked the main road in the town of San Miguel for about an hour.
The Platform for Public and Quality Health, 100 x100 (Torrevieja), organised the event. This platform advocates for improvements within the Torrevieja Health department that includes the two municipalities.
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The platform claims that there are eight family doctors per 15,507 people in the San Miguel/Montesinos area. That’s nearly 2,000 patients for each doctor.
In Valencia, the average number of residents per GP is 1.300.
The platform and the protestors were critical of the long delays in seeing a doctor either at the San Miguel or Montesinos medical centres.
The platform stated, “Access to a physician should not take longer than 48 hours following an appointment.”
The report said that despite a feasibility study, the promises made to expand San Miguel over a two-year period have not been fulfilled.
Also, there is a campaign for the extension of Los Montesinos.
The mayor of Los Montesinos, Jose Manuel Butron attended the event on Wednesday, as did his socialist counterpart from San Miguel, Juan de Dios Fresneda.
Butron stated, “I am in favor of the Public Health Platform since it does not concern political groups. It is about defending quality healthcare and public health.”
San Miguel also has concerns about the construction 3,000 properties that could see the population of the city double, and have an impact on being able to visit a physician within a reasonable time.
Manuel Gomez and Eva Delafuente from the platform criticized the lack of buses between the two cities to Torrevieja Hospital.
The towns have been crying out to get regular buses from the hospital.
The next platform demo will take place in Guardamar del Segura, on June 13th.
The number of complaints regarding the Torrevieja Health Department has increased dramatically since October 2021.
Ribera salud’s private management was taken over by the socialist coalition which governed Valencia under Ximo Puig.
Puig did not change his decision after Carlos Mazon, the leader of the Partido Popular, won the regional elections in 2023.
Vox, a far-right party, demanded this week the return of the Health Department to private management.
