The President of the Regional Government, Juanma Moreno, has announced that the Maternity and Children’s Hospital in Almeria will be named after Princess Leonor, for which he thanked the King for having accepted this proposal because «it is an honour for Andalusia and for Almeria to bear the name of the future Queen of Spain».
Moreno stated that the Andalusian Government is going to allocate a total of 155 million euros this year to carry out more work in primary care and in Almeria’s hospitals, while stressing its firm commitment to public health, as reflected in the figures.
In the specific case of Almeria, he pointed out that, today, there are 2,000 more professionals and three times more investment than in the previous four years, in addition to new health centres such as Macael, Olula del Río and Casa del Mar and new hospitals such as Roquetas and Materno Infantil.
The Andalusian president attended the ceremony to lay the first stone of the outpatients’ building at the Torrecárdenas University Hospital in Almería, which will require an investment of more than 16 million euros and is expected to be ready in two years.
He explained that the aim is to reinforce outpatient activity and integrate it into a single seven-storey building with 119 consulting rooms; two day hospitals, one oncology and the other medical, and a Diagnostic Imaging Area that will cover not only the patients in this building but also those in the Materno Infantil.
In this way, he pointed out that the University Hospital has had an investment of 41 million euros between the works already carried out and the new equipment that has been purchased, at the same time as he mentioned other important projects that have been carried out in Almeria such as the construction of the new Maternity Hospital with its eight floors that are already in operation, and the subsequent connection with the General Hospital.
Moreno emphasised that all of this is accompanied by new machines and equipment, some of which are state-of-the-art, such as the new linear accelerator. He also indicated that another
achievement that is close to becoming a reality this year is the PET imaging tests to detect tumours that people from Almeria have in other provinces and which can now be carried out at Torrecárdenas Hospital.
A hospital which, as he said, is increasingly prepared and has excellent professionals, many of them with a high level of teaching and research, which has facilitated the implementation of the Degree of Medicine in Almeria.
In this regard, he recalled that this Hospital will soon receive the students of this first generation of doctors trained at the University of Almeria this academic year 2022- 2023, a course for which the number of places has been increased and he has asked the central government to increase the MIR places so that students can do their speciality.
The President of the Regional Government stressed that Andalusia is carrying out a profound renovation of infrastructures, as demonstrated by the 1,500 million euros that have already been invested in more than 1,800 projects in just over two years.
In this way, he mentioned the agreement reached with the trade unions and employers in the Social and Economic Pact for the Promotion of Andalusia, in which more than a third of what is included is to guarantee primary care.
The event was also attended by the Regional Minister of Health and Consumer Affairs, Catalina García; the Regional Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Carmen Crespo; the Regional Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández Pacheco, and the President of the Provincial Council of Almería, Javier Aureliano García.