Antonio Sanz announces a "revolution" in Mijas healthcare with the new specialty center

"A historic day," "a revolution," "a radical change"... The Health, Presidency, and Emergency Minister, Antonio Sanz, and the Mayor of Mijas, Ana Mata, did not skimp on adjectives during the formal presentation of the new High Resolution Process Center (CARP) that will be built in Las Lagunas. This center is in response to the longstanding demand—and electoral promise—of the citizens of Mijas and Fuengirola, two municipalities that were one until 1841, share streets, and have a combined population of over 180,000, to have a hospital.

The new center will not have an ICU, hospitalization area, or the capacity to treat victims of severe traffic accidents, but it will cover 85 percent of health demands, according to the Health Minister. It will be possible because the health center will offer a range of services that includes cardiology, pulmonology, pediatrics, gynecology, ophthalmology, dermatology, and speech therapy, as well as major and minor outpatient surgeries, midwifery, and 24-hour emergency services every day of the year.

It will also be a "single-visit" center, meaning that citizens can receive diagnosis and treatment in one visit "for the specialties and pathologies indicated by the professionals," thus shortening discharge processes.

The center will have more than 12,300 square meters of space and will be operational in phases

A "revolution" in healthcare and care capacity in the third largest locality in the province by area and population, which represents, in the words of Sanz, a "radical change" thanks to a "very extensive" range of services and a model, that of the single visit, which will allow providing "very complete, efficient, quality, and faster" healthcare, proclaimed Sanz, who celebrated with the Mayor of Mijas the end of "more than 20 years of demands and laying of first stones," he said in reference to the unfulfilled promise by the former Socialist president Manuel Chaves in 2003.

A reality in tender

The High Resolution Process Center (CARP), which will be located on a municipal plot between IES La Vega and Miramar Commercial Park, near the municipal term of Fuengirola, is now "an unstoppable reality," asserted the mayor, announcing the tender for the drafting of the project for 625,000 euros. The technical document will be funded by the Municipality, as well as the construction of the center, while the Regional Government will handle the equipment and staffing. This project will determine the technical details, budget, and execution time of facilities that will have an area of 12,365 square meters and whose "implementation will be phased," according to the Health official of Juanma Moreno's Executive.

Sanz expressed gratitude for the "collaboration" of the Mijas Town Hall, which he cited as an example in a country where cooperation between administrations is not usual, and emphasized that the Andalusian government has made an unprecedented commitment to improving the public health system both in infrastructure and personnel and "we are committed to ensuring the equity of the health system regardless of where one lives but also to update and address with criteria the real demands of tourist populations that see their population and also their needs increase."

"It is a day for collaboration, for history, and for the truth of politics," the minister declared.