Inaugurate the new Regional Hospital for before the end of 2026 and reopen the Paschalunder public management, in the first half of 2023. These were the commitments of the regional government to alleviate a deficit of beds that unions, professional associations and health workers have been denouncing for more than two decades and which places Malaga as the province with the worst ratio in Andalusia in relation to its population.
The second of these deadlines has already been breached and the first It cannot be respected either. since the works have not even started. Every time the Health Administration is asked about the opening of Pascual, they reply that they are working on the functional plan and that “there is no date yet.” Regarding the future Regional Hospital, the new deadlines indicate that works could begin in May 2025.
With the runaway waiting lists and after two decades of non-compliance During the socialist administration of the Junta, the people of Malaga – now under an autonomous PP government – are still waiting for both health infrastructures.
New Regional Hospital
At the beginning of August 2021, the Andalusian president, Juanma Morenopresented the preliminary draft of the new Regional hospital. Then, he said that it would be the largest building in Andalusia and emphasized his determination that it would be a reality by pointing out that “there is no turning back.” Two years ago, in mid-April 2022, the Health counseling staged the progress of the project with the demolition of old buildings located next to the Civil Hospitalwhere the main health center of the province is planned to be located.
In that symbolic act, after two decades of missed deadlines by the socialists, Moreno promised: “We are going as fast as we can. We will declare it regional interest so that we can run more than the normal channel. He will not be in this legislature [2019-2022]but I am absolutely convinced that in the next [2022-2026] many of you will use it”.
The present mandate ends in a couple of years and it is clear that the Board will not be able to fulfill what was promised given that, although the drafting of the construction project has already been awarded, The work has not yet been tendered. The architectural studio of Carlos Lamelawinner of the construction project, put on the table of the Health counseling last August, the documentation on the parking lot, which contemplates some 2,000 spaces, and in December, the proposal for the execution of the new hospital building, which foresees 810 rooms, 198 consultation rooms, 42 operating rooms and 66 ICU positions. Both documents are pending validation by the Board.
The newspaper archive leaves no room for doubt about the delays. On June 14, 2019, the then Health Minister, Jesús Aguirre, he was confident that “during the second term we will be able to inaugurate that hospital.” That is, on the horizon of end of 2026. Then the pandemic arrived and disrupted many plans. So Aguirre himself, in October 2020, postponed to end of 2027 the commissioning of the also called third hospital.
In November of last year, during the presentation of the regional Budgets, the Minister of Economy, Carolina Spainpointed out that the forecast was to begin work on the new Regional at the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025. Now the Board is already talking about starting them around May of next year.
Given the size of the project, it is estimated that construction would take at least about four years, to which a few months would have to be added for the equipment. So, in the best of cases, even if there are no more delays as planned, the third hospital in Malaga will not be there before spring 2029.
The initiative includes a building of more than 270,000 square meters, interconnected with the Civil and Maternal through walkways. The property will have one base and four towers, with 15 floors (three below ground and 12 above). It will have 9,200 square meters for Emergencies, another 4,000 for Radiodiagnosis and will have access to the Metro. Work on the suburban branch to Civil has already begun.
Reopening of Pascual under public management
While the new Regional is being built, in order to alleviate the deficit of public health beds in Malaga, the Board proposed reopen Easter –which is private– under its management. In mid-October 2022, the then Deputy Minister of Health, Miguel Angel Guzman, advanced that the forecast was for it to be operational “in the first half of 2023” and that it would be “an expansion of the Regional, not a transfer.” That is, a new space that would be added to the pavilions that already make up this complex: A (the old), B (the new), the Maternal and the Civil. He then said that it was “an immediate solution” while the third hospital was being built to add about 200 beds to the public hospital network. But that immediate solution still has no opening date a year and a half after that commitment.
The Pascual Hospital closed in July 2018. A temporary measure due to the lack of patients and which led to a temporary employment regulation file (ERTE) for its 66 workers. However, it remains closed for now.
During the pandemic, in the worst months of Covid, when there was a lack of space in the hospitals to care for so many patients, this private center was considered as an alternative along with the Carranque Auxiliary Hospital. But in the end, patients were regrouped in the existing centers and others were referred to private healthcare, but neither the building on Amargura Street nor the device that was improvised against the clock in the sports facilities, next to the Regional, were ever used.
Almost a year ago, in mid-June 2023, the Ministry of Health accepted the free transfer of Pascual for five years. Then, the Administration reported that this center, already under public management, would have about 350 workers in its first phase and that it would begin operating “in the first months of 2024.” Those months have already passed and the Administration still does not give an approximate start date or details of the status of the reopening project.
It is true that the Board managed to close pending litigation with the company for services provided during the socialist era. It was possible thanks to the agreement reached for the payment of more than 121 million euros to the commercial entity José Manuel Pascual.
He is no longer at the head of the Ministry of Health. Aguirre. Nor is he as number two Guzmanwho was recently hit by controversy after his signing for Asisa. The positions in the Andalusian Health Administration are changing, but not that the people of Malaga continue waiting for the implementation of these two important infrastructures to alleviate a deficit accentuated by the demographic increase in the province in recent years.
More than 20 years of socialist promises and failures
The commitments of a third hospital for the city of Malaga to add beds to the deficient provincial public health system, they changed throughout the past socialist management of the Junta de Andalucía. But none were finally carried out. There were more than 20 years of repeated non-compliance with fundamental health infrastructure. It was and still is, as necessary as it is in demand.
He December 5, 2007aware of the shortcomings of the Malaga public health system, the Ministry of Health promised a third hospital in the parking lots of the Civil. Would have 110 beds, would cost 50 million euros and would be completed in about four years from the making of the land available. But it was never done.
Nine months after that promise, the September 17, 2008the Ministry change of plans. A few days before a demonstration to demand more hospital beds in the province, without land or financing, Health announced a megahospital. I would have some 1,500 beds and would cost about 600 million euros. After a few months, it became clear that the chosen location was in the area of The Asperones.
Nine years after that announcement, on the 1February 9, 2018the Health Administration changed plans again: it promised a new regional what would I have 800 beds, would cost 230 million euros and would be finished in about six years. The location also changed. This time, the construction was planned on the land of La Noria, next to the Maternal and Child Hospital.
This project did not see the light of day either. Although the group of experts led by the former Health Minister José Luis García de Arboleya advocated for the rear of the Materno, in the area of the La Noria social innovation center, the Malaga City Council and the Provincial Council spoke out in favor of the site next to the Civilwhich belonged to the provincial institution, was free and was transferred to the Board without any compensation in mid-July 2018.
So finally, the Ministry of Health returned to the starting box: a hospital on the floors of the parking lot of the Civil. But not with 110 beds – as he promised in 2007, nor with 1,500 as he said in 2008 – but a large hospital with about 800 beds to replace the current Regional one. Now, with the Board in the hands of the PP and the drafting of the project already awarded, the wait continues…