10 Jan, 2024 @ 13:08
1 min read

‘Profound crisis’ at Hospital Costa del Sol: 75,000 patients remain on waiting list for surgery, tests and appointments

U-turn by regional health bosses after Torrevieja Hospital staff voted for strike action on Spain's Costa Blanca

A DOCTOR’S union has denounced what it describes as a ‘profound crisis’ at the Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol in Malaga, due to underfunding and huge waiting lists

The Malaga Medical Union (SMM) claims that at the end of 2023, there were ‘75,368 patients waiting for surgery, a diagnostic test or a consultation’. 

That number accounts for 22% of the population in the area who depend on the healthcare system, according to the union delegate in the hospital, Jose Luis Prada. 

U-turn by regional health bosses after Torrevieja Hospital staff voted for strike action on Spain's Costa Blanca

Prada blamed underfunding for the regional health system, given that the official figures for the registered population were grossly out of line with reality.

He also pointed to the ‘enormous overload’ of emergency rooms, partly due to the huge spike in respiratory infections that is currently being registered across Spain in the wake of the Christmas holidays. 

“Essentially, this is a problem related to historical underfunding of this hospital, which has got worse due to the bad management […] during the hospital’s change in management model,” he said, in quotes cited by Malaga Hoy

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Simon Hunter

Simon Hunter has been living in Madrid since the year 2000 and has worked as a journalist and translator practically since he arrived. For 16 years he was at the English Edition of Spanish daily EL PAÍS, editing the site from 2014 to 2022, and is currently one of the Spain reporters at The Times. He is also a voice actor, and can be heard telling passengers to "mind the gap" on Spain's AVLO high-speed trains.

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