Head of Junta acknowledges that Costa del Sol needs more health resources
The president of the regional government in Andalucia, Juanma Moreno, was speaking at the opening of the new extension to the La Carihuela health centre in Torremolinos, which serves a local population of 26,000 people
President of the Junta de Andalucía regional government Juanma Moreno has officially inaugurated the extension of the La Carihuela health centre in Torremolinos, which serves 26,000 people. The new facilities opened at the end of July, a year later than planned.
After a tour of the facilities, Moreno gave a speech in which he defended the Andalusian health service. "It may have shortcomings, room for improvement, mistakes, like everything else in life, but it is a system that saves dozens of lives every day," he said, extending his gratitude to all healthcare workers. He acknowledged that the Costa de Sol "is lagging behind the increase of 600,000 inhabitants over the last 25 years", without having the necessary infrastructure to serve them. "It has created a bottleneck that is easy for us to solve, but we have many projects under way," Moreno said.
The new La Carihuela health centre has 11 new medical consultation rooms, which brings the total to 40, including a new radiology service that incorporates AI in diagnostics. The investment in this work was 1.4 million euros, plus 250,000 for equipment.
Moreno stated that the Junta is committed to renovating and expanding Andalucía's health infrastructure in all eight provinces. He highlighted the investment of almost 2.9 billion euros injected since 2019, of which 330 million euros have gone to Malaga province. "So far this year, we have allocated more than 32 million to improve health infrastructure throughout the province. We are going to finish long-awaited projects, such as the extension of the Hospital Costa del Sol, which we are opening in phases, or Hospital Axarquía in Torre del Mar, the construction of which is yet to be declared finished," he said, adding the construction of a new hospital in Malaga city to the list of anticipated project. The third hospital in the Costa del Sol capital will be the largest health centre in Andalucía and the largest project in the regional health service's portfolio. It is expected to be put out to tender in the short term.
After Moreno's tour of the La Carihuela centre, guided by director Irene Padial, Torremolinos mayor Margarita del Cid thanked the Junta for its "unwavering commitment" to the work.
