Torrevieja (Alicante) Health department provides some facts and figures for July

HEALTHCARE for Torrevieja and nine adjoining municipalities reverted to the regional government on October 16 last year.

This had been outsourced to a private company for the previous 15 years and despite promises from both sides, the handover to the public sector has not always been smooth.

In late July, the hospital management met mayors from Torrevieja Health Department’s 10 municipalities to discuss problems and outline improvements to A and E and attention at primary care centres.

These included a specific summer Contingency Plan with extended opening hours, more specialists and reinforcements for the Department’s 24-hour continuous primary care centres (PACs), where attention is available outside normal opening hours.

The Department has also campaigned for responsible use of the emergency service, encouraging patients to attend their nearest primary care centre and avoid unnecessary hospital visits.

Meanwhile, the Department announced that the health district’s six PACs attended to 78 per cent of all emergencies last month.  The total of 25,819 was an increase of 7,500 on the July figures for 2019, before the pandemic hit, and 9,000 more than last year.  The average waiting time was under 30 minutes.

The operating theatres at Torrevieja hospital, which are maintaining programmed activities throughout the summer, carried out 648 operations covering 11 different specialities in July, the hospital manager Dr Maria Pilar Santos said.

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