Simon Hunter
A DOCTOR’S union has denounced what it describes as a ‘profound crisis’ at the Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol in Malaga, due to underfunding and huge waiting lists.
The Malaga Medical Union (SMM) claims that at the end of 2023, there were ‘75,368 patients waiting for surgery, a diagnostic test or a consultation’.
That number accounts for 22% of the population in the area who depend on the healthcare system, according to the union delegate in the hospital, Jose Luis Prada.
Prada blamed underfunding for the regional health system, given that the official figures for the registered population were grossly out of line with reality.
He also pointed to the ‘enormous overload’ of emergency rooms, partly due to the huge spike in respiratory infections that is currently being registered across Spain in the wake of the Christmas holidays.
“Essentially, this is a problem related to historical underfunding of this hospital, which has got worse due to the bad management […] during the hospital’s change in management model,” he said, in quotes cited by Malaga Hoy.
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