The CCOO union, representing workers in the Department of Health of Torrevieja, has once again denounced that the hospital emergency room “has been collapsed for days and there is a lack of medical personnel to be able to attend to all the patients.”

They claim that the observation room reached its maximum occupancy, with patients who have been there for up to 62 hours, when they should be there less than 24. The examination boxes are full without the possibility of seeing more patients and this has caused, at times, up to 50 people waiting to be seen.

The same sources maintain that “the staff is scarce, in the case of male and female doctors there are only three in the emergency service and there should be eight. The situation is complicated because there is no medical chief in this service since the recent resignation of the last person who held this position. Thus, the residents must assume functions that do not correspond to them so that the patients are cared for.

The union warns that the problem is becoming entrenched in time, without solutions being offered in the short or medium term. The medical staff are exhausted, since they suffer strenuous working days and, in addition, they must do more to cover the minimum presences in each shift.

CCOO asks the Department of Human Resources of the Ministry of Health to make an active and constant search, both for medical staff and other deficient categories, through the improvement of working conditions.