Malaga hospital's 'structural crisis' blamed for 94-year-old’s 24-hour A&E stretcher ordeal

The ordeal of a 94-year-old woman who waited more than 24 hours for a hospital bed has sparked a backlash from trade unions, who warn that Malaga’s healthcare system is suffering from a chronic lack of human and material resources.

Trade unions confirm that the department is overstretched, with 25 to 30 patients waiting for a bed every day.

The patient, identified as Rosario, was admitted to Hospital El Clínico at 12:30 pm on Tuesday with dangerously low haemoglobin levels.

Despite her critical condition and advanced age, she remained on a stretcher for over a day before a proper bed became available.

"She was given transfusions, but all while lying on a stretcher," her son, José Antonio Bermúdez, told SUR.

He described his mother’s state as "terrible," noting she was losing blood and unable to eat while languishing in the observation area.

President of the workers' union at the hospital, Antonio Martos, said there were 18 patients waiting for a bed on Tuesday. This is no longer just an occasional situation at the hospital, he said. It has become a common occurrence and "a structural problem", where "25 or 30" people wait for a bed every day.

Martos attributes this to the doubling of the population in a few years and the lack of material and human resources. He believes that El Clínico is at least six or seven years from regaining normal waiting times.

"There is the respiratory unit, which has five beds and two stretchers. They can open them immediately, but there is another problem: the lack of human resources in all fields, but especially nurses and technicians in auxiliary nursing care," Martos said.

Trade unions feel helpless before the complaint of residents. Shortly after SUR spoke to Martos, the Hospital El Clínico unions released a statement to explain that they have a lot of stretchers that do not "meet the necessary conditions for prolonged stays or for the care" of patients in a serious condition and elderly people. Nonetheless, that is often their only option.

The hospital staff confirms that the emergency department is in a constant state of overwhelm, which leads to a bottleneck, "increases waiting times, hinders proper healthcare and increases the risk of adverse events".

Unfortunately, there have been cases, they say, where the state of patients has deteriorated during their stay on stretchers in the observation area. This is cause for "deep concern from a care, organisational and human point of view".

In addition, the staff is under constant stress and strain due to "an accumulation of patients, a lack of adequate space and the impossibility of providing care in optimal conditions, which has repercussions on the quality of care and patient safety".

The staff of El Clínico denounces the impact "this overload has on the mental and emotional health of workers, manifested in high levels of stress, exhaustion, frustration and professional burnout".

Unions demand organisational measures such as the opening of the respiratory unit, "which would allow the transfer of vulnerable patients to hospital beds, guaranteeing care more appropriate to their clinical condition and reducing the chronic overwhelm of the emergency observation area".

They call on the managing director of the centre and the Andalusian health service (Sas) to urgently review the management of car.

SUR is waiting for an explanation from the centre regarding the complaint on Tuesday and the general state of the emergency unit.