“No Turning Back” for Torrevieja Hospital

Despite it being one of the factors highlighted in the election campaigns, now the PP in Valencia are in power, the Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, has insisted that there is “no turning back” when it comes to the decision for Torrevieja hospital to be co-managed by the private sector, and it will remain in the public model, as controversially implemented by the previous PSOE-led government.

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Speaking in Alicante to present the new management of the Doctor Balmis General Hospital, the minister confirmed that there is “no turning back” and that now they are going to “try to get the most of efficiency” so that it can offer “the best quality of care.

In that sense, he pointed out that this efficiency is also one of the criteria that has led them to promote the decentralisation of the Emergency Information and Coordination Centre (CICU) – of which he highlighted that “we fulfil what we commit to.” Thus, he recalled that this decentralisation decree was already published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat Valenciana (DOGV) last week.

When the emergency coordination centre was centralised by the previous administration, that too was controversial, and is believed to have led to delays assigning ambulances to patients, once case at least with fatal consequences.

Along these lines, he has also guaranteed that they are complying with their roadmap which involves “firstly the change in the regulatory framework” that they have already made and “secondly, the search for the location” that they will have in Alicante. So far it has not been ruled out that the CICU may return to its original location, the Doctor Balmis General Hospital in Alicante, or that they find another “better” location for reasons such as its “accessibility.”

Furthermore, he once again recalled that they have made a call to the College of Physicians and the unions to be able to find doctors and has indicated that “at the moment we have a real problem” regarding the lack of these professionals. Finally, he recalled that the previous Consell carried out the centralisation of the CICU within a period of “a year and a half.”