A new health centre built in Luarca brings top-quality health services to Spain’s northern Asturias region.
- 28 August 2013
Luarca is located 90 km from the Asturian capital of Oviedo and over 500 km from Madrid. It is a parish in the municipality of Valdes with a population of 5 354 and an area of 5.94 km2. Luarca is a coastal town on the Bay of Biscay. The health centre that is the subject of this project is located in a neighbourhood of Luarca called Villar. It has been designed to cater for people from the entire district of Valdes. This is a predominantly rural area in need of adequate health services.
A multi-faceted service in a multi-purpose building
The centre provides primary healthcare along with mental health and rehabilitation services. With regard to primary healthcare, there are eight general consulting rooms, eight nursing consulting rooms, two paediatric consulting rooms, three consulting rooms for resident doctors, one physical therapy unit, a dental hygienist and dental service and one office for a social worker. There is an emergency department with a medical consulting room, a nurse’s consulting room and a multi-purpose room.
The health centre is home to the core mental health services for the area and as such is equipped with three psychiatric consulting rooms, one psychological consulting room, four consulting rooms for nurses and three multi-purpose rooms. In addition, there is a psychosocial and social rehabilitation area with ten individual rooms, a workshop, an exercise room, a multi-purpose room, a lounge and a dining room. This extended array of services is housed in a purpose-designed building of 7 000 m2 over four floors.
A wide reach
The state-of-the-art centre replaces an old health centre with the replacement being much bigger as well as more comfortable and better fit for purpose. It serves the primary care needs of 8 700 people and the mental health needs of 51 300 people. As such, it provides a high degree of coverage to the population of the region. This has been further aided by an extensive and effective media campaign informing potential users of the services provided. Information has been communicated through posters, an advertorial in a newspaper and postcards sent to homes in the region. The wider the coverage and the better informed people are, the greater the effect is on social and territorial cohesion.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Luarca Health Centre” is EUR 8 000 000, with the EU’s European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 4 807 398 through priority 6 “Social Infrastructure” of the “Regional Operational Programme for Asturias” for the programming period 2007-2013.