Trade union calls for urgent housing and mobility measures for workers at the Costa del Sol Hospital

Zoom

The CSIF states that contract refusals are being recorded, while others are accepting positions by sleeping in their cars or commuting daily from other provinces, and it warns of a possible “collapse” in the summer

José Carlos García

Marbella

Friday, 24 April 2026, 13:14

The central independent trade union for civil servants (CSIF), the first multi-professional trade union force in the Andalusian health service (SAS), has formally requested the management of the Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol (HUCS) in Marbella to adopt "urgent" measures. This request was made in view of "the serious" situation that the workers of the centre are going through as a direct consequence of the lack of housing, the collapse of mobility in the area and "the lack of will on the part of the different administrations to reach solutions".

This union has expressed its "concern" about the precarious working conditions that are becoming "increasingly worse" and predicts that this summer will face a "complicated situation" due to the difficulty in covering staff holidays. The union states that contract refusals are being recorded due to the inability to afford relocation, which will have an impact on professionals and users. “Far from being a one-off, this situation is already a structural problem that is pushing out essential workers while the authorities look the other way,” the organisation says.

In the case of Hospital Costa del Sol, this reality is leading to “an increasing number of contract refusals by healthcare professionals, who cannot take on temporary posts without having somewhere to live”.

The union warns that the situation will "undoubtedly" worsen in the summer, when the pressure on care will increase and it will be "even more difficult" to attract staff

Moreover, some workers who do agree to take up the post – in order to gain points on the recruitment list – are doing so “in absolutely undignified conditions, sleeping in their cars or in motorhomes parked in the hospital’s own car park, due to the impossibility of finding accommodation in Marbella and the surrounding area”, the organisation states. The CSIF claims that "some of them have been in this precarious situation for years, scraping by in their vehicles, far from their home and family, as they accumulate working time to gain points on the recruitment register", while "others choose to travel hundreds of kilometres daily, many from other Andalusian provinces, in order not to give up their contract".

The union claims that this scenario "not only undermines the dignity" of SAS professionals, but is generating "a problem of enormous gravity" arising from the lack of coverage of positions in the hospital. It warns that this deficit, "no doubt", will worsen in the coming summer months, when the pressure of care will increase and it will be "even more difficult" to attract staff to cover the holidays of professionals. It also highlighted the removal since last February of the bus service that facilitated the daily travel of numerous health professionals from Malaga and other parts of the coast "without any administration having done anything to prevent it".

Formal request

Faced with this situation, the union has formally registered a petition addressed to the management of the HUCS to study "immediate measures to avoid the foreseeable collapse of care that may occur soon if action is not taken now". The union said that there are "exceptional and viable" measures to alleviate this "housing and mobility crisis that is suffocating the Costa del Sol as a result, among other factors, of tourist overcrowding and the lack of institutional planning".

The union accuses the regional government of acting "irresponsibly" by allowing precariousness and placing "an entire hospital on the verge of collapse"

In this sense, the CSIF has criticised the fact that the Junta de Andalucía decided to put out to tender a concession for the operation of the Residencia de Tiempo Libre de Marbella, a facility located 3.5 kilometres from the hospital that was used during the pandemic to house professionals from the health centre. This is a decision that the union considers "yet another example of the irresponsible management of public resources on the Costa del Sol", which harms workers, users of essential services and the general interest.

The union said the regional administration is acting "irresponsibly, allowing precariousness to continue to punish a group of essential workers, and placing an entire hospital centre on the verge of collapse". "The public health system cannot be supported by workers without housing, without transport and in conditions of absolute precariousness. The Costa del Sol cannot afford to lose more health professionals due to the inability of the administrations to respond to a problem that is already unsustainable," concludes the union.