Alex Trelinski
SAN Miguel de Salinas and Los Montesinos residents and politicians protested on Wednesday about a lack of family doctors and long waiting lists at Torrevieja Hospital.
Demonstrators gathered outside San Miguel Town Hall and the Health Centre- blocking off the main road through the town for around an hour.
The event was organised by the Platform for Public and Quality Health 100 x 100(Torrevieja) which lobbies for improvements to the Torrevieja health department which includes the two municipalities.
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The platform says the patient-family doctor ratio is far too high in the San Miguel and Montesinos areas, standing at eight GPs for 15,507 residents- in effect nearly 2,000 people for each doctor.
The average ratio across the Valencian Community is 1,300 residents per GP.
Long delays to see a doctor at either the San Miguel or Montesinos health centres were slammed by the platform and protestors.
“Access to a doctor should take a maximum 48 hours from making an appointment,” the platform said.
It added that promises made over two years to expand the San Miguel centre have not materialised- even with a feasibility study.
There is also a campaign to extend the Los Montesinos facility.
Los Montesinos mayor, Jose Manuel Butron, attended Wednesday’s event, along with his socialist counterpart in San Miguel, Juan de Dios Fresneda.
“I support the Public Health Platform because it is not about political groups but defending quality and public healthcare,” Butron commented.
There are also concerns in San Miguel about the construction of 3,000 properties which could see the population double and the impact that would have on seeing a doctor within reasonable time.
Platform spokespersons, Manuel Gomez and Eva Delafuente, criticised the lack of bus services from to the two towns to Torrevieja Hospital.
“The towns are crying out for this as a priority and want regular buses to the hospital,” they commented.
The next platform demonstration will be in Guardamar del Segura on June 13.
Complaints over the state of the Torrevieja health department dramatically increased from October 2021.
That’s when the socialist-led coalition that ran Valencian government under Ximo Puig took over the private management of the service from Ribera Salud.
Puig lost the 2023 regional elections with the Partido Popular’s Carlos Mazon taking over but he did not reverse the decision.
Earlier this week, the far-right Vox party called for the health department to be returned to private management,
