“There is a common problem everywhere: there are not enough doctors.” This is how Manuel Reyes, director of the San Cecilio Clinic Hospital and the Loja Hospital, explains why the protests at the doors of the Loja Hospital Center due to the lack of health services it suffers from have become commonplace: since the beginning of July, it has not been possible to hospitalize any patient, despite the presence of a space dedicated to them.
The hospital, which opened in 2011 in Loja (20,000 inhabitants), is the reference point for an entire health region that includes not only the municipality of Loja, but also other enclaves such as Huétor Tájar or Zagra. Populations that total around 50,000 inhabitants who, this summer, will have to travel at least half an hour by road to be hospitalized.
This is the recurring complaint of unions, professionals, patients and the PSOE. In fact, the spokesperson for the socialists on health in the Andalusian Parliament, María Ángeles Prieto, considers that the situation in the Loja hospital is an example of the “dismantling” that the government of Juan Manuel Moreno is carrying out. The current staff is not enough to take care of the hospital area, so it remains closed.
But the problem of the hospital center, which previously belonged to the Poniente Health Agency and has been integrated into the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) since 2022, has different diagnoses depending on who analyzes it. According to the center’s management, led by Manuel Reyes, the key is that with summer illnesses there is no replacement because “there are no doctors at the national or international level.” As the Ministry of Health also points out, “there is no staff in the stock market or in the complementary ones.”
If those answering this question are professionals or unions, the reason for the lack of personnel is that “attractive contracts are not being made”. Nurses and doctors agree that the SAS offers “short-term” contracts, even day-to-day contracts, which makes it impossible for anyone to accept these jobs.
Although it is not a particularly aging center, workers admit anonymously that “there is no relief”: “Since it is possible to work in the private sector without being penalized, we have many colleagues who prefer to leave to avoid the guards.”
Lack of staff
Until last June, if a patient had to be admitted to the Loja hospital, they could do so without any problem and have a bed for 72 hours. If their condition worsened, they would be transferred to the San Cecilio Clinic Hospital in the capital Granada, but they had three days to do so. Now, no resident of the region can spend more than 12 hours under observation because the 18 emergency doctors at the hospital cannot cope.
Walking through the hospital is like walking through a modern building with a multitude of closed consulting rooms, especially in primary care, where only four of the eleven family doctors are available. In the hospitalization area, it is striking that all the rooms are also unused and there is no movement of people. There are also no operations because the center has only one anesthetist who is not available every day, so the hospital’s operating room remains closed during the summer.
“The decision was made to close the hospitalization area due to a management problem: last year, during the entire summer, barely twenty people were admitted,” explains Manuel Reyes, director of the center. “We met with the emergency professionals, who are the ones who manage the hospitalizations, and we decided to reorganize ourselves with the resources we have.”
“If my husband or my son gets sick, you can tell me how calm we can be,” says María Angustias. She is one of those people who, due to her advanced age, visits this hospital more than she would like and has seen for herself that, in her opinion, in recent years “everything is worse.” Another nurse at the hospital, who prefers to remain anonymous, believes that the situation “has gotten much worse” in recent years. “We see that people are getting used to the lack of services and that is something that worries us too.”
“Cuts” and “dismantling”
The PSOE and the unions consider that since the hospital ceased to be a health agency because the SAS absorbed them in 2022, the situation “has worsened”, although they affirm that the “dismantling” has taken place especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In this center, not only are we not reducing resources, but we are expanding them,” Reyes denies. In fact, as a career psychiatrist, he is proud that the hospital has included mental health in its portfolio of services and that “very soon” this sector will have its own building a few meters from the hospital. “Our desire is not to make the situation worse, but to improve it with the resources we have.”
But the mayors of the territory do not share this optimistic vision. After carrying out a symbolic confinement in mid-July, the councilors of Loja, Villanueva Mesía and Huétor Tájar speak openly of the “cuts” of the Moreno Bonilla government. They understand that the region has gone from a “hospital” to an “expanded health center”. The disappearance of hospitalization or the non-existence of surgical interventions support their theories.
However, the management insists that it is investing in the Loja hospital. According to official data, the current workforce is 150 workers, 130 of whom are permanent. They admit that there have been “specific incidents” in some specialties, but they attribute them to the victims and the calls for opposition that are taking place.
Regarding the operation, according to the management of the center, it is expected that 1,100 surgical operations will be completed in 2024, a figure similar to last year, and that there will be around 50,000 outpatient consultations, also as in 2023. And they specify that since the decision As a health agency, the Régie has invested more than three million euros in the modernization of the resources of the hospital center.
