The local government takes a full motion to demand a solution from the Ministry for the Pediatrics Service of the Comarcal Hospital

The local government of Benidorm will take to the next plenary session, which will be held on Monday, a motion signed by the spokespersons for the PP municipal group, Lourdes Caselles and Mónica Gómez, to urge and demand that the Department of Health "urgently solve" the situation of the Pediatric Service of the Marina Baixa Regional Hospital, a situation that they have called "serious".

The motion indicates that despite having a care population of more than 200,000 inhabitants, which multiplies in summer, the hospital centre has been forced to suspend outpatient pediatric consultations due to a lack of personnel, with which 25,000 children in the region, In addition to the floating population, they must be referred to other hospitals to be treated.

The text mentions the recent statement published by the active paediatricians. They made it clear that of the eleven paediatricians who made up the service, there are currently only four left, which they consider "the result of the lack of foresight and neglect in the last two years." The consequence, they add, is that "the service is disorganized, outpatient consultations have been suspended and more than 200 children a week are no longer attended to, from the different pediatric subspecialties." In this sense, they regret that the remaining paediatricians are obliged to make an average of 7-8 shifts per month.
The situation, denounced on multiple occasions by the medical union CESM before the hospital management, "has not obtained any solution to date."

Mayor Toni Pérez has lamented that “in the face of this serious situation, the Ministry has not planned to convert any of the Covid contracts into a position for Pediatrics” and has openly criticised that “no Outpatient or Hospital Pediatrics position has been planned for the province of Alicante of the seven contemplated in the entire Valencian Community”.

"We do not understand how such an important and essential service deserves so little attention from the health officials of the Generalitat," said the mayor. In his opinion, "there has been plenty of time to address the situation and put an end to it." “Doing nothing” he added “has caused situations such as the fact that currently there is not even an established protocol for children to continue with their guidelines or to be seen by another specialist, even though many of them suffer from chronic diseases. that require continuous monitoring.

In the opinion of the mayor, "the extreme seriousness" presented by the Pediatric Service of the Marina Baixa Hospital "not only fails to attend to a large number of boys and girls daily, with the condition that this entails, but also decreases The operation of the Valencian health system and, specifically, the Health Department of the Marina Baixa is very severe”.

Toni Pérez has stressed that "given the communications from health personnel, what they are publishing and the patches that have been put on so far, we believe that a Health Council should have been held to explain everything because a solution is necessary". The mayor has finally affirmed that "our reaction can not be other than this motion that on Monday, without a doubt, the plenary session will approve".

Therefore, the local government of Benidorm will demand in the next plenary session that the Ministry of Universal Health and Public Health "urgently solve the serious situation that the Pediatric Service of the Regional Hospital is going through and provide it with as many human resources as are necessary and necessary”. An agreement that will be transferred to the Presidency of the Generalitat and to the Ministry itself.