Each primary care doctor in the Torrevieja Health Authority is responsible for an average of 1,512 patients. This is the worst ratio per doctor in the entire Valencian Community.
Following the reversal from the private management of Ribera Salud the situation has worsened and now the 100×100 Public Health Platform has publicly denounced the unacceptable situation at the doors of the La Loma health centre.
The group has highlighted this situation using data from the 2022 management report, now that the Authority has been managed by the Ministry of Health for the last 2 years.
The “direct consequence” of this situation, according to the spokespersons of the Platform, Manuel Gómez and Eva Delafuente, is that the healthcare activity in primary care and mental health, measured by the number of consultations carried out, is one of the lowest in the Valencian Community. Except for the provincial capitals, Torrevieja is the department with the largest number of protected populations in the regional areas of the Community, 204,000 registered with a SIP card, and with the highest percentage of people over 65 years of age, more than 30%. of the total, however, it is the one with the fewest Family Medicine and Paediatric consultations in 2022: more than one hundred thousand primary care consultations less than the Community average.
Those who suffer the most from these deficiencies, in the opinion of the same source, are the level 3 chronically ill patients. They are people immobilised in their homes whose comparison, with the exception of the department of Orihuela, “is chilling and borders on abandonment” with just one visit for every eight, on average. The Platform’s balance sheet indicates that these are the socially “most disadvantaged” people.
They place mental health activity along the same lines stating that Torrevieja, which only has 6 psychologists, 6 psychiatrists and 11 specialised nurses, has a very poor rate of mental health visits.
According to the Ministry of Health, however, the Platform is using data from 2022. Now the ratio of Primary doctors in the Torrevieja health department is 1,414 patients on average and “is within the standard established by the Ministry”. Regarding Paediatrics, the average is 850 patients per doctor which has also been reduced during this year.
