2 Feb, 2021 @ 18:01
1 min read

New Estepona Hospital opens early to receive COVID-19 patients from Marbella

Estepona Hospital

THE new Estepona Hospital has opened ahead of schedule today in a bid to relieve the pressure of COVID-19 currently being felt throughout Malaga province. 

Under the management of the Andalucia Health Service (SAS), the hospital began receiving coronavirus patients from Marbella’s embattled Hospital Costa del Sol on Tuesday.

With Andalucia and Malaga seeing more COVID patients than ever before, the transferring of patients could not wait until the official opening date, scheduled for February 8. 

BRAND NEW: Estepona Hospital has been roped into the coronavirus battle

All those being transferred are in a stable condition, ABC reported. 

It comes after Marbella and Estepona were forced to close all non-essential businesses in January after surpassing 14-day incidence rates of 1,000 cases per 100,000 people. 

As of today, the incidence rate in Marbella is 1,260 and in Estepona 1,093. 

Meanwhile neighbouring Manilva and Ojen have respective rates of 1,268 and 1,126.

While infections have cooled over the past couple of days, hospital pressure and deaths have continued to rise, with Tuesday seeing the blackest day of the pandemic in Andalucia (106 deaths). 

The opening of Estepona Hospital is part of Andalucia’s plan to free up 7,500 beds for the disease following an ‘explosion’ of cases during the third wave. 

The field hospital of Carranque has also been set up outside the Carlos Haya Regional Hospital in Malaga city. It currently has capacity for 140 beds but can be expanded to fit 400. 

The Estepona Hospital was built in record time, starting in mid-2017 and finishing by December 2018, however it has not opened until this week. 

The brainchild of popular mayor Jose Maria Garcia Urbano, it is hoped to attend to around 135,000 people per year and take immense pressure off of its Costa del Sol counterpart.

Click here to read more Spain News from The Olive Press.

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

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