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Eugenio Cabezas
Torre del Mar
Friday, 23 August 2024, 13:27
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The Hospital Comarcal de la Axarquía, located in Torre del Mar on the eastern stretch of the Costa del Sol, will celebrate its 40th anniversary next summer. Since the hospital opened in 1985 it has witnessed the evolution of the eastern side of Malaga province and an increase in foreign residents and visitors who use its services.
The health complex has undergone major improvements in recent years and during a visit to the latest extension on Wednesday 21 August, the Andalusian government's representative for health, Carlos Bautista, said that the Junta de Andalucía has invested more than 19.7 million euros over the last five years.
The hospital serves an area which is home to more than 175,000 inhabitants. Bautista said: "In the last five years, the investment in building work has exceeded 11 million euros, more than 3.6 million have been invested in equipment and 5.1 million in energy efficiency."
Speaking about the current extension, Bautista said, "The work is going at a good pace and we hope that it will be finished by the beginning of next year." He added that the investment for this project is more than 4.5 million euros.
Sando is the company in charge of carrying out the construction of two new buildings, which will house facilities not directly associated with healthcare activities, including a meeting room, chapel, a cafeteria for professionals and users as well as offices.
Once complete, the hospital will be able to free up space to improve its healthcare services, according to Bautista. Prior to this project the access to the hospital was renovated, with the demolition of the existing access ramp to create a new main entrance, which involved an investment of around 400,000 euros.
Bautista explained that this hospital centre has 210 beds and seven operating theatres, two of them for emergencies; and that the emergency area has three triage rooms, nine consultation rooms, three examination rooms and a plaster cast room, as well as an observation room with nine beds, 10 chairs and four stretchers. "Since 2020, important extensions have been made to the care capacity of this centre with the provision of a second CAT scan, a second magnetic resonance, a new surgical day hospital, the creation of a new operating theatre and the restructuring of the musculoskeletal area with new facilities and technical equipment," Bautista explained. He added that an increase in the demand for care has not had a negative impact on the waiting list data "thanks to the efforts of professionals and administration staff".
The number of patients awaiting surgery has gone from 464 in December 2018 to 81 in July this year, a reduction of 82.5 per cent. Patients without a guaranteed response time in this period has gone from 368 in 2018 to four. And the average delay for surgery in the Axarquia has gone from 180.86 days that patients were waiting in 2018, to 72 today, according to the data provided by Bautista.
"Thanks to the restructuring of the diaries and other actions, the number of patients waiting to be seen in specialised care has decreased by 46 per cent from December 2023 to the end of July. In the province, thanks to the Junta's health guarantee plan, the number of Malaga residents waiting for surgery after the deadline has been reduced by 39 per cent, and the average delay in guaranteed procedures has gone from 98 days in December 2023 to the current 79 days, as of 28 June this year," Bautista said.
Bautista went on to say that "at the end of this year, 94% of staff in Andalusia will have a permanent position, but in addition to these workers, who are more than 25,000 in 2018, their working conditions have been improved". He added, "Never in the history of healthcare in the Axarquía have there been more professionals and better paid, where the budget allocated to recruitment has increased by nearly 45%".
Over the last five years, the number of staff in the Axarquía has increased significantly to 1,898 professionals and, in addition, since 1 June, the healthcare professionals who were hired as a "Covid reinforcement" have moved to stable employment to cover the needs of the system.
In the hospital 22 doctors' positions have become permanent;18 in different specialities and four emergency doctors; and 31 nursing contracts have been maintained, 15 auxiliary nursing care technicians, 12 orderlies and 2 orderlies. In primary care, 33 family doctors have been made permanent, 11 nursing contracts, the nine school nurses have been maintained, seven physiotherapist posts have been created and nine administrative posts and one occupational therapist post have been made permanent.
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