The local government will once again submit a request to the Regional Ministry of Health for a solution to the precariousness of the health transport service in the municipality. A report has been drawn up by the City Council that includes the incidents recorded - some resulting in death - in the reports of the Local Police that reflect the situation of vulnerability of citizens and visitors. This document includes specific cases in which the ambulance, which must travel from Denia or Jávea, has arrived more than an hour and a half late.
Despite the efforts made by the City Council to strengthen the ambulance service, the Consell Jurídic Consultiu issued an opinion on the competence in this matter in January 2019, stating that the Generalitat Valenciana has exclusive competence for the organisation, management and direction of all public health facilities and that there is no authorisation that would allow the City Council to exercise the competence for ambulance transport.
The Generalitat Valenciana also stated that "the hiring of an ambulance for basic life support to supplement the health services of the Ministry of Health, which would be paid for from the budget of the City Council, is a responsibility of the Ministry of Health. For this reason, given the fact that the City Council has no competence in health matters, it cannot provide the urgent health transport service, which in any case falls within the competence of the Consellería de Sanidad.
Nevertheless, the City Council continues to work with the Red Cross, financing the ambulance service of this institution, so as not to leave the community without such a necessary service For this purpose and, the cost of the ambulance service will be transferred to the plenary as extrajudicial credit recognition. Despite all this, the service is still insufficient, which is also reflected in the complaints of the citizens.
The Mayor, Ana Sala, has pointed out that "the City Council is not resigned to the inactivity of the relevant administration. We cannot leave the citizens without a service such as the Outpatient Department due questions regarding who is competentee; the Consellería must now offer a solution.
At the beginning of 2019, the City Council sent a letter to the Consellería explaining the current insecurity of the health service and asking the Generalitat to offer solutions. To date, however, the autonomous administration has not yet reacted.
The current service is inadequate: a Soporte Vital Básico, which includes the transport of patients to the hospital in Denia, a SAMU service based in Benissa and a TNA based in Denia. As a rule, it is not possible to organise medical transport from the various housing estates or town centres to the Calpe Health Centre when the Soporte Vital Básico provides transport to the hospital in Denia. In these situations, SAMU is requested to travel from Benissa to Calpe - when no other service is being provided - and to go to the home or place where the sick or injured person is and transport them to the Health Centre.
The programmed TNA transport, for its part, is limited to transporting patients from their home to the hospital to facilitate their participation in scheduled outpatient appointments and is not suitable for emergency care. Given the population structure of Calpe - where the elderly population predominates due to the tourism model - and the dispersed nature of this locality - where 50% of the population lives in housing estates outside the town centre - a clear neglect of the municipality in this area can be observed, which is even more evident in times of maximum tourist influx. In view of these circumstances and the distance between Calpe and Denia (34 kilometres), as well as the increase in population during the summer, the town has for years been strengthening the service in various ways, although this was not its responsibility.