On Friday 21st March the old la Marina hospital closed its doors in preparation for refurbishment. The new La Marina hospital at La Xara will operate all consultant and emergency appointments for the next few months. The new hospital is having a few teething problems and now that it will be working at full pace with full capacity they will have to get their act together.

The new hospital is being run by a private admin group, which seems to have worked in other national health hospitals in Spain.Their main problem seems to have been the transferring of patient files, diaries for consultant appointments and total lack of parking for all the visitors; they are working hard to sort this out.

The old hospital at Pedrera will be out of action for at least 3 months whilst work is carried out. It will reopen as a general health clinic for villages that do not have their own clinic and the hospital wards will be used for long stay patients (2 months or more). This should eventually make the emergency department far more efficient with short term beds easily available. Unfortunately the work is being undertaken over the summer months when the local population is nearly doubled with tourists! That may cause a few problems but the Valencia health authority is aware and hopefully the building work will be finished by June.

In the meantime all consultant appointments are in the new hospital as is the emergency department. The telephone number for enquiries is 966429000.