The heavy rains that fell yesterday afternoon in Madrid left extensive damage to two public hospitals in the north of the capital: Ramón y Cajal and La Paz. In the latter there were floods in all the buildings, leaving more than 50 affected areas. “During a vascular operation, the ceiling fell in the area adjacent to the operating room,” say hospital sources. Fortunately, there were no personal injuries, but there were floods, broken pipes, broken machines… The buildings in La Paz have 14 floors and rain appeared on many of them.
The list of units affected in La Paz is long, but highlights include the gym, the emergency area, the entrance to the outpatient clinics, some boxes in the intensive care area, the maternity kitchen, various pediatric areas, laboratories and the general stores, among others.
“Since it rains again this Tuesday afternoon…,” sources from La Paz point out, “we don’t know how the hospital can be.” Machines have even broken down, such as “laboratory robots and ENT equipment is being evaluated,” the same sources point out.
The Technical Assistance Board of Hospital La Paz, a collegiate body that advises the management, already notified Isabel DÃaz Ayuso’s team at the beginning of May that “the hospital is failing”, since it is over 40 years old and its facilities are very obsolete. This entity does not know why the Government of the PP of the Community of Madrid does not start the remodeling works of the Castellana de La Paz, an investment of more than 500 million to demolish the current buildings and build new ones.
Another of the hospitals that was strongly affected by the rains yesterday was the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital. In basement 5, where a warehouse area and another for the pharmacy service are located, it was flooded. Firefighters had to intervene; although this incident had no healthcare or personal repercussions, sources from the hospital explain.
In an audio sent to the media, the CCOO delegate at the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, Luis Mancera, indicates that “the storm has disabled the pharmacy, the linen, the kitchen and the parking lot.”
“Our hospitals need a good investment in maintenance, which they have not done for many years,” says Mancera, who has detailed that “the patients were able to have dinner last night thanks to the kitchen staff” and this Tuesday they are analyzing what happens with the medicines the pharmacy and with the clothes of the patients. The Ramón y Cajal Hospital, inaugurated in October 1977, and La Paz, inaugurated in July 1964, need to modernize their facilities, since they are already very old. And every time it rains in Madrid, especially in La Paz, many incidents are generated.
