Passengers arriving from all international destinations will be required to present a negative COVID-19 test result before departing for England to help protect against new strains of coronavirus circulating internationally. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced that from next week inbound passengers arriving by boat, plane or train will have to take a test up to than 72 hours before …

The municipalities of Orihuela and Los Montesinos are amongst fifty towns across Valencia set to benefit from a European Union grant to allow the installation of free public WiFi. The European Commission announced the results of the second wave of proposals under the WiFi4EU project, from which a total of 51 municipalities in the Valencia region will receive 15,000 euro …

The DGT launched a special awareness campaign on Monday, aimed at alerting drivers to the dangers of having consumed alcohol or drugs before driving. As part of the campaign, every day this week, including the weekend, the Guardia Civil Trafico will be conducting 20,000 tests on drivers, to ensure that they are safe behind the …

The Valencia regional tourism department has published the results of this year’s social media barometer, which shows Torrevieja amongst the most talked about destinations throughout the first six months of this year. It’s the eleventh time the results have been published, a system which trolls through the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube looking for mentions of areas in …

Torrevieja’s councillor for Animal Protection, Carmen Morate, has reported that the provincial government of Alicante has offered a grant on more than ten thousand euro to Torrevieja to help control cat colonies in the town. In total, 10,252.50 euro has bene awarded, and so, “During the past week and this, the feeders that deal with the cat colonies – organized …

The Guardia Civil is asking for assistance in locating 42 monkeys, which may be located in the Alicante province, having been illegally smuggled into the country last year. However, the search is now far more serious than first thought, as not only were the monkeys smuggled into the country illegally, tests have proven that one

The recent autonomous elections in the Valencian Community were a disaster waiting to happen for the ruling Partido Popular, as the party and its senior representatives had been racked with corruption charges. In almost every instant the ultimate outco...

Mesenchymal stem cells are capable of producing different specialised cells that are found in skeletal tissues. Spanish researchers at the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) have successfully carried out a clinical trial that shows the effectiveness...

Elche General Hospital is one of the Valencian centers with the highest number of organ donations in the Region, 24 in the last year, leading to the center quickly establishing itself, particularly in the areas of kidney and cornea surgery

The hospital first began performing kidney transplants three years ago in 2012, since when it has successful completed a total of 64, of which 23 were performed in the last year.

The coordinator of the Transplant Unit, Maria Angeles Casillas, said “This is a particularly high number, considering that we only began the procedure recently. Indeed in the first year the hospital only managed to complete four interventions.”

“This type of operation allows patients to recover a quality of life that many of them had previously lost when they became dependant on dialysis treatment. I have spoken to many patients about their daily life ‘before and after' the procedure and they all give a very emotional testimony to the vast improvement in their lifestyles.”

Cornea transplants are another practice that the General Hospital carries out, the implementation of which provides very good results and currently enjoys a healthy rate of donors, which is encouraging news for both those who have lost their vision and the surgeons.

Of course there are always significantly more people waiting for an organ transplant than there are suitable donors and one of the roles of the staff in the Transplant Unit is making members of the public aware. In the environment in which they work they regularly come into contact with the families of deceased or dying patients who in such dramatic moments, are reminded that they are able to offer the possibility to other people of a second chance to live.

Indeed the success of organ transplants in Spain is attributed mainly to the sensitive way in which these transplant coordinators approach the bereaved families.

One member of the unit said that only about 15 percent of families approached in Spain refuse consent for organ donation, a huge drop from the 40 percent who refused in the 1980s and at many hospitals the refusal rate is nearly zero percent.

Spain currently boasts 36 donors per million people — equal to 1,682 donors — "far superior" to the European Union figure of 19, health authorities said of figures released from 2014.

In a pioneering procedure developed using the facilities at Elche's Rio Safari, forty women affected by breast cancer have been benefitting from therapy with sea lions.

The beneficiaries are all members of the Elche Association of Women Affected by Breast Cancer (Amacmec) and so far they have attended the centre's therapeutic baths on seven occasions, with each of the visits supervised by therapists and trainers.

A spokesperson for the project said that the main objective is to reduce the negative psychological symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, from which those affected by the disease inevitably suffer.
It also aims to improve other lifestyle aspects such as self-esteem and image as well as quality of life and emotional well-being.

Participants were divided into small groups of five to six women per session. On many occasions they were accompanied by their children or their partners who were also able to benefit from the treatment.

Each session was divided into three phases: socialization, relaxation and interaction with the sea lions, allowing the participants to play and carry out relaxation exercises with the mammals, either individually or as a group.

The therapies are adjusted to meet the needs of the individual patients. To enable this to happen the therapist receives information on the characteristics of each participant which allows them to focus the therapy on their individual needs

According to a Rio Safari occupational therapist with the Maria Galvañ Foundation, the sea lion is a "docile" animal that responds very well to interaction with humans. "It is a very motivating and innovative therapeutic tool that gets extremely beneficial results" all of which help these women to "improve their emotional well-being while they are having fun and by also raising lots of smiles."

After months of uncertainty, a chink of light can now be seen at the end of the long, dark tunnel Elche Club de Fútbol has been staring down for month after month. Having resisted the pressure to step down as club president by means of bare-fa...

Hoteliers and restaurateurs in the province said they felt "very positive" after the first major holiday period of the year, in which hotel occupancy had actually touched 100% in Benidorm.

Hosbec president, Toni Mayor, said that in many other areas the occupation rate was up to 98% and it had been a ‘spectacular week' for restaurants, cafes and many other hospitality-related businesses, ‘the best Easter in the last 10 years bringing over 40 million euros into the local economy.'

Of the total expenditure, 55-60 percent was in the coastal province of Alicante, which, according to the Minister of Economy, Industry, Tourism and Employment, Maximo Buch, reached an average occupancy of 85 percent, who has expressed "satisfaction" with the results achieved in the number of travelers and overnight stays, an increase of almost a five percent over the same period last year.

The Minister said that Easter "is often a barometer of the upcoming summer season, for which we now have high expectations in terms of travelers, overnight stays and tourist spending."

He also praised "the positive impact the occupancy rate has had on employment generation, which will help consolidate the good results already achieved in the province during the first two months of the year, with over 58,500 employed in the tourism industry, 7% more than the same period last year. "

Buch made the remarks during his visit to the Escuela de Hostelería de Elche, launched by the local council last March. He praised the school saying that the initiative "is an example of how such training can help create job opportunities, placing them within the leading tourism activities that create employment."