The new health center in Marbella will provide coverage for 20,000 residents

The president of the Andalusian Regional Government, Juan Manuel Moreno, inaugurated this Monday the former Urban Planning headquarters in Marbella as the new Ricardo Soriano health center, a facility that will serve 20,000 residents across its 23 consulting rooms.

This center is the sixth Primary Care facility in the city, part of an Andalusian government plan to modernize health infrastructures, which includes the expansions of La Carihuela in Torremolinos and Los Boliches in Fuengirola last September.

The health center's opening faced several delays since the construction began in June 2022, initially expected to take 12 months, extending the timeline for its opening from two years ago to finally inaugurate the Primary Care center in November 2025.

It’s important to recall that the City Council's forecast in October 2023 - which undertook the refurbishment of the premises - was to open the health facility at the beginning of 2024, and by June of that year, it announced that the work was 95% complete, estimating its opening for the "autumn" of last year, according to statements made at the time by Mayor Ángeles Muñoz.

The Andalusian leader was received at the inauguration event amid boos from residents of the Platform for the full opening of the Estepona hospital and workers from the Senator hotel, who are currently negotiating a collective dismissal, thus they awaited the president's arrival to present their demands.

Moreno made a visit to the new health center, highlighting that it features “23 consulting rooms, including one for minor surgery,” in a 2,000 square meter space. He added that “it offers services not available in Leganitos such as physiotherapy, and has introduced a new state-of-the-art mammogram machine, adding to the four existing ones in the health district, in addition to an ultrasound and a retinograph.”

“I am very happy that the day has finally come to inaugurate the long-awaited Ricardo Soriano health center,” Moreno stated about the health facility that opened last Thursday, highlighting that it is “a new and much-needed infrastructure to decongest Leganitos, which has suffered from space issues for decades.”

The Andalusian president emphasized the investment made by the regional government for “the equipment and the wonderful staff” of the health center, which is owned by the Junta, and which he noted “now serves 20,000 residents” of central Marbella, mainly elderly people, and will have “a team of 20 professionals plus another 5 shared staff.”

Regarding the hours of the center, he noted that in this first phase “it will open from Monday to Friday, from 08:00 to 15:00 hours,” although he specified that the intention is for the Ministry “to work on extending its hours from 08:00 to 20:00 in the coming months.”

At the same time, he stressed the “great symbolic significance” of the building, which was “the former headquarters of the Urban Planning management during the era of Jesús Gil” and that the Junta put up for auction with the Socialist governments on several occasions, after acquiring the property as payment for the 100 million refundable advance granted to the City Council as a loan after the dissolution of the Council in 2006 due to corruption cases. And this, despite the “interest of the Mayor's Office to expand it and make this health center,” he added.

On the other hand, he pointed out that “the remodeling and adaptation of the building was undertaken by the Marbella City Council,” which allocated an investment of over 3 million euros, for which he recognized the local Administration's “investment effort” and thanked them for “making things easy.”

For her part, the mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz, highlighted that the building “is at the public service” and “returns part of the heritage to the city,” recalling that it was the former Urban Planning headquarters during the Gil era and that the City Council handed it over to the Junta as “payment of the refundable advance” made to the Management when the Council was dissolved in 2006 due to corruption cases and that was auctioned twice.

The mayor praised “the constant commitment, the closeness, and providing solutions for Andalusia” of the regional president, criticizing that “collaboration and institutional loyalty would not have been possible with a Socialist government.” “It is one of the most advanced health centers in Andalusia and is a pride for Marbella and necessary,” the mayor emphasized, who advanced that “very soon” the Nueva Andalucía center and the expansion of Las Albarizas will be inaugurated.

“Plan renove” for health infrastructures

Furthermore, Moreno referred to the modernization plan for health infrastructures launched by the Junta since 2019, which includes the opening of the Ricardo Soriano health center and the expansions of La Carihuela in Torremolinos and Los Boliches in Fuengirola last September, aimed at “modernizing and improving the service to the citizens of the health network and the conditions of the professionals.”

Thus, he emphasized the renewal that the Costa del Sol is experiencing, “an area with such a population and demand for services almost all year round,” and the population growth in the province over 30 years, which he estimated at 600,000 people without the construction of new infrastructures, which has necessitated “urgently expanding the Costa del Sol hospital” or the new one in Málaga.

The president of the Junta assured that in the last 7 years “100% of the health centers on the Costa del Sol have been subject to improvement, either partial or total,” highlighting that the accumulated investment amounts to “more than 350 million euros in improving the health network in the province of Málaga,” in which he indicated that this year they plan to invest “about 32 million euros from a budget of 72.” Among the projects, he referred to the expansion of Costa del Sol or the new health centers in El Palo or Nerja.

“Since we have assumed the responsibility of government, we have quadrupled the sanitary renovation plan, going from 661 million euros invested between 2012 and 2018 to almost 3,000 million euros between 2019 and the present moment, with which we have carried out more than 1,800 actions to improve the health sector,” he highlighted.