Union CCOO reports leaks, mould and lack of wheelchairs at Sagunto Hospital
Trade union CCOO says Sagunto Hospital has cracked ceilings, worn-out beds and a shortage of wheelchairs, and is calling on regional health authorities for an urgent expansion of the centre.
Cracked ceiling panels, damp patches that could be linked to mould, poorly maintained beds and too few wheelchairs: that is how union CCOO describes the current state of Sagunto Hospital, known locally as «la Mini Fe». The union's complaint focuses mainly on two areas that treat hundreds of patients every day — Emergency and Internal Medicine — where the building's wear is, it says, most visible.
CCOO wants these problems checked by technical staff as soon as possible, and says it already raised a similar complaint with hospital management earlier this year without a response. For the union, not having enough wheelchairs, or beds that make it hard to move patients safely, is not just a matter of appearance: it directly affects the quality of care and adds to the workload of doctors, nurses and support staff.
On top of that comes a recent controversy: the hospital has taken in a batch of used beds handed down from La Fe Hospital in Valencia city. The union has no objection to reusing equipment that is in good condition between public hospitals, but warns that this kind of hand-me-down should not become the standard way of covering what it sees as a structural lack of resources. Instead, it is asking for a planned, ongoing renewal programme.
Minerva Almor, CCOO's regional health official for the Camp de Morvedre-Alt Palància area (the district around Sagunto), sums up the demand in three words: safety, dignity and quality of care — values she argues cannot keep relying indefinitely on extra effort from staff who are already stretched while the building itself gets no investment.
Behind the complaint lies a bigger argument: the district's own growth. CCOO points out that Sagunto is going through a period of industrial expansion linked to projects such as Parc Sagunt II or the new battery factory, plus other incoming businesses, and argues that this economic push should come with more investment in public services too, not only in industrial estates or logistics infrastructure. The hospital, the union notes, has now been running for 44 years, and every summer feels the extra strain of people settling on the coast.
This is not an isolated case. The same demographic pressure pushing up housing prices in Camp de Morvedre — to the point that officials are considering declaring parts of it a rent-stressed area — is starting to show up in public healthcare too: hundreds of workers from the new industry, and their families, are adding demand to a hospital that, CCOO says, already carries maintenance gaps even before that transformation is complete.
The scale of the challenge becomes clearer once you look at the area Sagunto Hospital actually covers: its Health Department is not limited to the town itself, but manages ten basic health zones reaching, along the coast, as far as Puçol and El Puig, and inland into Alto Palancia, as far as Segorbe, Viver and Soneja. The «growing district» CCOO talks about is, in practice, a much wider area than Sagunto alone.
Sergio Villalba, CCOO's general secretary for Camp de Morvedre-Alt Palància, makes a similar point: public services in the area cannot lag behind while the district keeps adding population and economic activity. That is why the union is asking the regional health department (Conselleria de Sanidad) and the local Health Department management to stop just patching up problems and finally commit to long-term planning.
CCOO's list of demands boils down to four points: urgently inspect and repair the ceilings and damp areas, provide enough wheelchairs, replace the worst-condition beds, and set up a stable maintenance and investment plan. On top of that comes a bigger ask: a real expansion of the hospital, focused especially on Emergency, Intensive Care and inpatient beds, so the centre can keep up with the current and future needs of a district that, the union says, keeps growing.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional data from the Sagunto Health Department (Generalitat Valenciana, the regional government).