Doctor Peset University Hospital in València brought the first section of its refurbished emergency department into use on Thursday 27 August, doubling the space in its waiting room and providing a separate entrance for patients arriving by ambulance. The opening changes reception and initial care at a hospital serving a health district of 292,000 people, but construction is not yet complete.
Additional observation beds are still to come. The project will increase their number from 25 to 34, adding nine beds, while rapid treatment chairs will rise from ten to sixteen. Those improvements belong to later phases and should not be counted as capacity already available.
The Valencian government’s announcement on 26 August scheduled clinical activity in the refurbished section to begin the following day. Completion of the entire refurbishment is expected in the first quarter of 2027; that remains a forecast.
So far, 930.38 square metres have been completed, accounting for 44.7% of the planned total area for general adult emergency care. This section includes reception and admissions, the waiting area for patients and relatives, and the area for critically ill patients, which has tripled in size. Ambulances now have a dedicated entrance.
According to Ecos de Valencia, the opening also brings emergency medicine consulting rooms and spaces for psychiatry, ophthalmology and trauma care, alongside nursing rooms, treatment rooms and a plaster room with its own patient route. New rooms do not amount to an announcement of additional staff, nor do they establish that waiting times have fallen.
The full project has a budget of €5.2 million. As Actualidad Valencia reports, it is divided into four phases so that emergency care can continue during construction. Once complete, the department will cover 2,081.22 square metres, a 21% increase. That percentage refers to the finished project.
Alongside the extra beds and chairs, six isolation bays are planned to replace the single existing bay. The final phase will bring administrative offices and a meeting room into the department from their separate location. The next opening will need to establish when all 34 observation beds and sixteen treatment chairs become available. For now, the published timetable gives only an expected completion period for the works as a whole.