Costa Blanca's Calpe ambulance needs urgent solution

Caption: RED CROSS: Supplements Calpe’s ambulance service. Photo credit: Calpe town hall

AN inadequate ambulance service is putting lives at risk, Calpe town hall warned. Policia Local statements reflect the “vulnerability” of the local population and visitors in a health emergency or accident, a town hall report concluded. The next council meeting will debate asking the regional government’s health department for a solution and also vote on continuing to pay the Red Cross to supplement the regional health department’s service.
A life-support ambulance can take 90 minutes to arrive and must make the journey from Javea or Denia, a delay that can result in a patient’s death. The townhall’s agreement with the Red Cross helps to cover the shortfall but the Valencia region’s Legal Advisory Committee announced in January 2019 that only the Generalitat may organise, administrate and manage the public health system. This includes providing ambulances, the Committee ruled.
The Local Administration Directorate-General also informed the town hall that only the region’s health department, and not Calpe town hall, was competent to pay for a basic life support ambulance to complement the official service. Nevertheless, the town hall has continued paying the Red Cross to provide an ambulance to ensure that Calpe has an adequate service, although Major Ana Sala warned that even this was insufficient.
“The town hall is not prepared to resign itself to the administration’s inaction,” Sala said. “Residents cannot be left without a service like an ambulance because of competency issues,” she declared.
 

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Lisa Burgess

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