The before and the after in the health of La Rioja Baixa was marked by the opening of the Calahorra Hospital Foundation. It was thus fulfilled with a recurring demand of the Riojan municipalities, especially of Calahorra, and with which the specialized medical attention to the patients of the Low La Rioja approached.
On December 18, 2000, the new hospital, which came from a first specialty center, began operating. For La Rioja Baixa, it was a major health breakthrough. An event that, on June 7, 2001, made the inauguration of the center official. José María Aznar, Then President of the Government of Spain; Celia Villalobos Villalobos, Minister of Health; Pedro Sanz as president of La Rioja; José Ignacio Cendrers, Aránzazu Vallejo, Javier Pagola … A large group of national and regional authorities applauded the opening of the hospital. The center began operating with 125 workers and 29 physicians. Number that has grown in these twenty years to 430 professionals.
The implementation of the specialties was done in stages. First the consultations, emergencies, x-rays, laboratory and hospitalization of the medical area were opened. In the following weeks the services of surgical activity, hemodialysis and rehabilitation would do it. But with Christmas in the middle, it was not until after these dates that the first surgeries were performed and the delivery rooms were opened. Precisely, the maternity area was then one of the most valued. It had been ten years since the old polyclinic ‘Our Lady of Carmen’ had closed the delivery rooms, forcing the midwives to travel to Logroño or Navarra to light their babies.
The most valued area was maternity, as after the closure of the polyclinic the midwives had to move to Logroño or Navarra
First baby, in 2001
The first birth came on February 5, 2001. He was a boy, Emilio José Echevarría Abadia, who weighed 3 kilos and 400 grams. Her parents, Emilio and Yolanda, reported the happy news in the pages of this newspaper, grateful for the treatment given by the center staff.
next Emilio José, In the same year another 310 babies were born. Over these two decades, the hospital has seen the birth of 10,500 children from Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Cervera, Autol, Racó de Soto, Aldeanueva d’Ebre, Pradejón … A long list of municipalities, donce more than 74,000 people live in Rioja, who have had specialized medical care close to home for twenty years.
The hospital’s 20th anniversary also comes with a ‘gift’: its integration into the Riojan Health System. Another claim sustained for years and which seeks to equate its situation with that of other health centers in the Community of La Rioja.