Representatives of the Platform for 100% Public Healthcare held a press conference, calling on the Valencian Regional Government to change its healthcare policy, as they have been demanding for five years.
The deterioration of the public healthcare service is having negative consequences for its users and is due to causes that are nothing more than increasing the profits of private healthcare.
The Torrevieja hospital was linked to the administrative concession with Ribera Salud and worked in synergy with the Vinalopo hospital, with which it shared everything: staff, resources, infrastructure and patients.
The budget I had planned for the expansion of the public hospital in Torrevieja was 11.1 million in 2023, but with the new government in 2024, that budget was frozen and reduced by 1.1 million.
The construction of a new health centre in Orihuela Costa and the expansion of the one in Guardamar were also budgeted for, but both have also been put on hold.
We are extremely concerned about the freeze on investment in infrastructure. Nothing has been done to improve the infrastructure of the various health centres in the region, such as La Loma 2, the San Miguel de Salinas health centre, the Los Montesinos outpatient clinic and the Orihuela Costa outpatient clinic, among others.
However, in January this year, Orihuela Town Council negotiated with Ribera Salud to build a hospital in Lomas de Cabo Roig.
However, neither the Orihuela nor the Torrevieja councils, which are the municipalities that contribute the most patients to the existing hospital in Torrevieja, have been willing to listen to us, despite our repeated requests for a meeting. This shows that their health policy is moving in a different direction from what our Platform advocates.
There is a tendency to parcel out and divide all hospital services in order to outsource them to the private sector.
The changes being made by the administration are all in the same direction, favouring private healthcare. Proof of this is the referral of medical and surgical tests to the private Quirón hospitals and the public-private Vinalopó hospitals, and the referral of non-serious hospital emergencies to the Quirón Salud hospital.
All this demonstrates the need for a second hospital or the expansion of the existing one.
"With the Vinalopó hospital contracted to Ribera Salud and the Quirón hospital in Torrevieja, we are seeing in a more exaggerated way how the Valencian regional government is supporting referrals to these centres.
It is clear that what we are asking for from the Platform for Public Healthcare is of no interest to them.