A recipe deeply rooted in the Vega Baja, prepared by a restaurant in Torrevieja, is the best tapas in the entire Valencia region, according to the judges ot the regional competition, Mejor Tapa MadeinCV. The dish consists of gallo pedro, otherwise known as Zeus faber, from the Zeidae family, a deep sea pelagic fish with a laterally compressed body, served …

From Monday, May 20, you may book an appointment at the Alicante healthcare centre. The centre will open its doors on Monday, May 27, offering almost all medical specialisations, diagnostic tests, laboratory, and general, paediatric and gynaecological accident and emergency service. The new Centro Médico Quirónsalud Alicante [Quirónsalud Alicante Medical Centre] will open its doors on Monday, May 27, and …

Quirónsalud Torrevieja and Valencia Hospitals are benchmarks in the Valencian Community offering an international approach with “in house” translators, international admission and bilingual medical staff Healthcare industry is one of the sectors with the most promising future in the economy of the Valencian Community. The rapid growth in recent decades in terms of training of human talent and infrastructure investments have …

You might think that the roads around Torevieja have been particularly busy over the last week or so, and they  have, but not as busy as they are about to become! The second phase of the special Easter roads operation will begin on Wednesday across most of Spain, except in the communities of Valencia and Catalonia, when it will begin …

Los Montesinos will become the bowls capital of Spain in May, as the town plays host to a championship tournament. Some 2,000 people are expected to descend on the town to participate in the competition, which will take place between the 11th and 25th of May. The councillor for Tourism and Sports in Los Montesinos, Ana Belén Juárez, launched the …

Towards the end of this month, Torrevieja will be a haven for bird spotters, as the Birding Festival Humedales del Sur de Alicante returns to the Parque Natural de la Mata. The dates for your diary are the 26, 27 and 28 October, for an event dedicated to the world of birds and ornithological tourism organised by Turisme Comunitat Valenciana, …

Initial plans and preparations are underway for an earthquake emergency drill, which is set to take place on November 14. Last week, the local coordination centre, CECOPAL, was the location where the first working meeting took place in order to start the formal preparations for the drill. The meeting, chaired by the mayor, José Manuel Dolón, is part of the …

Professor at the University of Alicante, Marco A. Celdrán, chaired the conference “New Scenarios for the Planning of Tourism”, which was held in the casino of Torrevieja, an initiative of the Department of Tourism in Torrevieja, in recognition of World Tourism Day. The coordinator of the University Headquarters of the UA in Torrevieja, José Norberto Mazón, intervened at the beginning …

Water reservoirs in the Valencian Community are at the some of the lowest levels in the whole of Spain with its reservoirs at 30% and 34% of its capacity in the Segura and Júcar basins respectively, according to the latest data from embalses.net. Meanwhile, in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula there are places where …

The beaches of the Vega Baja region, which include the Orihuela Costa, will exhibit a total of 25 prestigious blue flags this summer, which is four more than last year and in spite of all the chaos on some of the local beaches involving beach bars – or lack of them. Nevertheless, this area continues to lead all others within …

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.

As part of their road monitoring and policing procedures, the DGT has an expenditure budget of 734 million euro this year, with more than half, 441.9 million, being spent on staff costs. However, thanks to the number of drivers fined for road traffic...