The future infrastructure of the local area received a boost this week when it was announced that an agreement had been signed between the Junta de Andalucia's Councillor for Health, María Jesús Montero, and Mayor of Estepona, Antonio Barrientos for the ceding of land for the building of a hospital in Estepona.

Maria Jesus Montero inspects Estepona's facilities

The hospital will be what is known as a High Resolution Centre, whilst not a full-scale hospital these medical facilities are designed to streamline the processing of patients, providing a one stop consultation, diagnosis and treatment process, with all the necessary departments and equipment under one roof and should cater for 80% of the area’s medical needs.

The cost of construction will be met by the Junta de Andalucia, who have budgeted 21 million euros for the facility which will serve the 74,000 inhabitants of the municipalities of Estepona, Manilva and Casares, a figure which is expected to rise to 121,000 by the year 2010.

The project, which is anticipated to begin in the second half of this year is expected to take two years to complete, and will provide a maximum of 96 beds, 4 operating theatres, along with accident and emergency facilities, clinical support, outpatients, consultancy rooms and diagnostic labs.

A predicted medical staff of 200 are expected to deal with 4,600 operations, 118,000 outpatient appointments and 67,000 accident and emergencies in the first year of operations.