The Popular Party has come under criticism after abstaining from an Orihuela City Council motion demanding a second SAMU advanced life-support ambulance for the local health district.
The Ciudadanos proposal was approved with the support of every other political group. It calls on the Valencian Health Department to provide the two SAMU units originally allocated under the Generalitat’s medical transport contract.
Orihuela currently has only one SAMU ambulance, despite the earlier contract specifications providing for two units: one in Orihuela and another on the coast. The coastal unit was ultimately incorporated into the Torrevieja health district because Orihuela Costa falls within that healthcare area.
The UGT union has warned since 2025 that an administrative error left the Orihuela district with a single SAMU from 2022. It argues that the shortage places patients at risk whenever two serious emergencies occur simultaneously or the district’s ambulance is transferring a critically ill patient to hospital.
In a complaint to the Valencian Ombudsman, UGT claimed that ambulances must then be dispatched from neighbouring areas, potentially increasing response times to between 45 and 60 minutes. The union said such delays regularly exceed the clinically safe limits for the most serious Code Red emergencies.
Cambiemos councillor Leticia Pertegal urged the regional authorities to treat the situation with greater seriousness and responsibility. Vox councillor María del Carmen Portugal said that, although the wording had been changed in the latest ambulance contract, the underlying problem remained: one SAMU is serving approximately 183,000 people while also undertaking patient transfers.
Socialist councillor Luis Quesada, a healthcare professional at Vega Baja Hospital and a UGT member, described the situation as unsustainable. He argued that two ambulances are required to cover Orihuela’s 24 outlying districts and 17 inland municipalities. He contrasted this with Torrevieja’s health district, which he said has three units for around 225,000 registered patients.
PP health councillor Irene Celdrán said she had previously travelled to Valencia to request another SAMU. However, she defended the Health Department’s argument that ambulances are coordinated regionally by the CICU emergency centre rather than being assigned exclusively to municipalities or health districts.
Celdrán highlighted four logistical bases in the Vega Baja: San Bartolomé, Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa and Guardamar del Segura. Critics rejected this explanation, arguing that an ambulance dispatched from Torrevieja or Guardamar could take almost an hour to reach one of Orihuela’s more distant rural communities.
Ciudadanos spokesman José Aix accused the PP of allowing its political relationship with the Generalitat to influence its position. He questioned how the party could justify abstaining from a request intended to improve emergency medical coverage for Orihuela residents.
The motion was ultimately approved, but the PP’s refusal to join every other group in supporting it became the central political issue. For campaigners, the argument remains straightforward: Orihuela needs sufficient permanent emergency resources to ensure that no patient faces a potentially fatal delay.
