Work starts on Marbella's brand-new medical practice

AN ADDITIONAL doctors' surgery for Marbella is 'very necessary and very much in demand', says mayoress Ángeles Muñoz – which is why works are due to start on this vital facility any day now.

What used to be the Ricardo Soriano town planning headquarters, a 'highly-symbolic building', according to Sra Muñoz, had been passed into regional government hands and was due to go up for auction, which Marbella council considered a travesty.

Enter its new 'job' as a medical centre, which will provide crucial backup for existing clinics, as well as extra facilities that the two-year pandemic has shown to be more needed than ever.

Once fully restored, refurbished and kitted out, the GP practice will have three storeys of surgeries, waiting rooms and nurses' stations – 10 of which will be on the top floor along with two extra paediatric consultation rooms, five multi-disciplinary units, four nurses' rooms, a pre-natal zone for pregnant women, and seven waiting areas.

The ground floor will house the odontology unit, two blood-test rooms and two waiting rooms, whilst the lower-ground floor will be home to the radiology, mammogram and physiotherapy departments, along with the admin and management teams.

Mental health care will remain at the existing Las Albarizas surgery, but plans are afoot to expand the unit in order to attend to more service users.

Ángeles Muñoz has just announced that the job for renovating the building ahead of its equipping has been assigned to a development company with a budget of approximately €1.9 million and a deadline of one year, meaning supplies and furniture will start to move in by around the end of May 2023.