MORE round-the-clock walk-in centres are desperately needed in La Safor to cut the burden on A&E staff and reduce delays of several hours patients suffer, says a leading union.
The 24-hour centres should all have X-ray machines and other basic diagnostic equipment, as this would mean only very serious cases being referred to the hospital with most of them filtered out at source.
And if it really is life or death, patients would wait far less time for an ambulance to a local health centre than to get to Gandia hospital for treatment, says the general workers‘ union (UGT), one of Spain’s largest two.
A&E visits have gone up by 20% since the new hospital opened exactly a year ago, but in the last 20 years no regional health authority has ever researched La Safor’s real healthcare needs, says UGT spokesman Antonio Agustí.
