Caravaca's Health Centre extension is already receiving patients
The health centre has come into operation with 15 new consulting rooms
The project to extend the Caravaca de la Cruz Health Centre, with a new building with three floors and more than 1,600 square metres, has enabled 15 family medicine, dentistry and nursing consultations to be opened this November.
The President of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, accompanied by the Mayor of Caravaca de la Cruz, José Francisco García, inaugurated the facilities, with an investment of 3 million euros.
López Miras said, “The new health centre in Caravaca de la Cruz is another example of the regional government’s commitment to the municipality and to improving primary care,” while highlighting “the significant increase in the number of consultations, which will allow for greater quality in patient care”.
Mayor García pointed out that “the important investments, both in facilities and technical and human resources, are marking a before and after in the public health of the municipality”.
“The Caravaca Health Centre was the oldest of the network of centres in the Region that were built in the 1980s, more than 35 years old, and had become obsolete and insufficient to serve the current population,” he added.
He also explained, “The expansion of the Health Centre and the project to create the ICU and Day Hospital are in addition to the efforts made by the Regional Ministry of Health to increase staff and fill vacancies that are difficult to fill, an effort that has resulted in an increase of 43 more doctors, from 216 to 259, which represents an increase of 20% in the workforce since the pandemic until now.”The Northwest Health Area IV has a total of 1416 workers, 254 more than at the beginning of the pandemic.
Thanks to this expansion, the Health Centre has enough space to provide all Primary Care services, as previously, due to lack of space, some had to be carried out in an external location.
The centre now has six more general consultation surgeries, taking the total to 15; eight more nursing stations, bringing the total to 10; and one more dentistry surgery, so that there are now two.
With the new 1,600-metre annex building, the Caravaca de la Cruz Health Centre now measures 3,000 square metres, plus a basement parking area of 700 square metres. The new building, in addition to the aforementioned Family Medicine, Nursing and Dentistry offices, is equipped with a physiotherapy service and a special techniques room for ultrasound scans and spirometry tests.
Currently, the Caravaca de la Cruz Primary Care team serves a population of 19,100 adults and more than 3,000 children and is made up of, among others, 13 family doctors, four paediatricians, 14 nurses, a midwife, a dentist, a dental hygienist and seven administrative assistants. It is also a teaching centre, so it also has residents in training in medicine and nursing.At the same time, the extension work being carried out on the Caravaca hospital, which includes a new ICU with eight beds, a Major Outpatient Surgery Unit, a Day Hospital and Outpatients’ Department, is in its final stages and is due to be completed in 2025. That project has a budget of 3.5 million euros.
Another important improvement at the Hospital Comarcal del Noroeste is the MRI units and equipment, which will prevent patients from having to travel to other hospitals for these diagnostic tests. The investment in this equipment totals 1,730,980 euros and includes the 1.5 Tesla equipment, the adaptation of the MRI room, the waiting room and other radiology rooms.
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Images: Ayuntamiento de Caravaca de la Cruz
