Mayor demands 'reinforcements' to health centre emergency services

(Press release) Mayor Pascual Collado has requested an urgent meeting with the provincial health delegate, Hipólito García, to demand improvements to the Emergency services at the village health centre. Several important incidents have occurred over the last few days as the result of insufficient staffing and lack of resources at the centre. Collado points out that these resources are not enough to adequately serve a municipality as dispersed as Jimena. It has often been the case that when the present emergency team is called out, the centre is not equipped for any other emergency that might happen in the meantime. Another consequence is that all too often a very ill patient has to be transferred from a local ambulance to a regional one, usually at the roadside in La Almoraima at Castellar. Jimena Council has>
asked repeatedly for a solution to this problem for years. "Although there have been some improvements," says Collado, "these are absolutely insufficient to cover our health needs. We cannot wait any longer and are now demanding immediate action."

In his meeting with García, the Mayor will propose setting up a DECU ambulance service (Note: we are trying to find out what the acronym stands for..) for the primary care network, which is apparently available to everyone in the Campo area, except Jimena and Castellar. "We are treated less fully than the rest of the Campo de Gibraltar," says Collado.

The Mayor was careful to say that the presnt team of emergency health workers do a vrey good, professional job but insisted that it is impossible to cover all the health needs of the municipality with the present number of people, "and we cannot wait until some tragedy happens so that we get the renforcements we desperately need."

Collado expects the meeting with the provincial health delegate to take place on Monday or Tuesday.