Every August, the Andalusian public health service gets smaller. Not by accident, and not quietly: the SAS publishes a Plan de Verano (summer plan) each year, staff take much of the leave they are owed in the same weeks, substitute hiring rarely covers the gap according to the medical unions, and the result is planned bed closures, idle operating theatres and health centres on morning-only hours in the busiest weeks of the year. Residents who have been here a few summers plan around the SAS calendar the way they plan around the August motorway. This guide sets out what the 2026 plan reduced and for how long, what stayed open, which reductions run past mid-September, and what still works while the plan runs to 4 October and a national doctors’ strike is announced for 28 October.
Last verified: 18 September 2026.
Why August, every August
The mechanics are structural, which is why the pattern recurs each year with different numbers. Hospital doctors take much of their leave in July and August. Backfilling those absences means hiring substitute doctors on short contracts, and the unions say there are not enough candidates for one-month and three-month contracts, so the SAS plans reduced activity instead: beds close, scheduled surgery slows, and some afternoon clinics stop. The Junta presents each year’s Plan de Verano as reinforcement; the medical unions read the same document as a plan for managed shrinkage. For 2026 the SAS’s own release (11 June 2026) put the regional plan at 41,639 authorised contract events, 14 per cent more than 2025, on an initial budget of 168 million euros, 24.4 per cent more, with a forecast of 85.7 per cent of hospital beds and 75.9 per cent of operating theatres available across Andalucía from July to September. The Málaga-province figures reported in the press were 31.1 million euros and 7,235 contracts. Contract events are not unique hires. The Sindicato Médico de Málaga’s response was that the increase goes largely to non-medical staff, and that the number of substitute doctors barely moves from last year.
The practical takeaway is the same whichever framing you accept. The plan reduces scheduled capacity across July, August and September, and that is when the two-tier reality of Costa del Sol healthcare shows its seams most clearly. Anything elective is easier to place before a plan starts than during it, and in 2026 the plan runs to 4 October.
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The August 2026 closures in Málaga province
This section is the dated layer of this guide; it is refreshed when the union figures for a new summer appear. The SAS release does not itemise closures hospital by hospital. The figures below are the Sindicato Médico de Málaga’s account of the 2026 plan as planned maxima, published on 1 July 2026 and reported by Andalucía Información and El Español Málaga; they describe what was planned, not what was observed on any given day.
- Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria (Málaga): a planned maximum of 86 beds closed from 3 to 30 August, and six of its sixteen operating theatres out of service for the same period.
- Hospital de Alta Resolución de Benalmádena: all three operating theatres planned closed from 3 to 30 August.
- Hospital Valle del Guadalhorce: all four operating theatres planned closed from 17 to 30 August, with scheduled surgical activity suspended.
- Hospital Regional de Málaga: four intensive-care beds planned closed, with summer specialist cover across neurology, nephrology, haematology and paediatrics resting on temporary contracts of 30 to 92 days.
- Across the province: per the union, bed reductions touch urology, mental health, neonatology, oncology, paediatrics and infectious diseases, alongside partial closures of hospital units and a general slowdown in scheduled surgery.
Two caveats worth carrying. These are the union’s figures, published as criticism of the plan, and the SAS has not itemised them hospital by hospital in its own release. And a closed bed is not a closed hospital: emergency departments at the centres named above continued to operate; for the current service picture at any one centre, check the SAS centre directory or ring the centre.
What stays open
Hospital emergency departments do not close for the summer plan. Urgencias (accident and emergency) at Hospital Costa del Sol in Marbella, Virgen de la Victoria, the Hospital Regional and the comarcal hospitals continue, and emergency and urgent surgery continues even where scheduled theatres are dark. What the plan thins is scheduled activity: routine operations, first consultations, follow-ups and diagnostics.
In primary care, the Distrito Sanitario Málaga (the capital and Rincón de la Victoria) kept seven of its 27 health centres open into the afternoon between 29 June and 11 September 2026, for urgent and non-deferrable care, while the rest ran 08:00 to 15:00, according to the Sindicato Médico de Málaga as reported by La Opinión de Málaga on 14 July 2026. The seven were Churriana, Colonia Santa Inés-Teatinos, Cruz de Humilladero, El Palo, La Roca, Puerta Blanca and Rincón de la Victoria. Five of them ran puntos de urgencias (urgent care points) from 20:00 to 08:00: Churriana, Cruz de Humilladero, El Palo, Puerta Blanca and Rincón de la Victoria. Normal afternoon opening was due back from Monday 14 September; we have not been able to confirm it centre by centre, so ring before an afternoon visit. Other districts ran their own timetables, below. If you are not sure where your nearest urgencias point is, Salud Responde on 955 54 50 60 can tell you, as can the ClicSalud+ portal.
On the Costa itself, the Distrito Sanitario Costa del Sol applied afternoon closures centre by centre, on different dates, and two of them run past the middle of September. Per the Sindicato Médico de Málaga (La Opinión de Málaga, 14 July 2026), the afternoon closures were: La Lobilla 27 July to 13 September; Los Boliches (Fuengirola) 29 June to 13 September; La Cala (Mijas) 20 July to 13 September; Torrequebrada (Benalmádena) 6 July to 13 September; Fuengirola Oeste 13 July to 20 September; and Los Pacos (Fuengirola) 29 June to 27 September. Leganitos and Ricardo Soriano in Marbella and La Carihuela in Torremolinos closed on Friday afternoons only. These were afternoon closures, not closed centres, and they are the union’s reported plan rather than a confirmed reopening list. In the Valle del Guadalhorce all health centres closed their afternoons for ordinary activity, with urgencias points open from 15:00 to 08:00 on weekdays and around the clock at weekends. If your usual centre is on the list, ring it or check ClicSalud+ before an afternoon visit rather than assuming the afternoon is back.
New for 2026: the western corridor has a working hospital
For the first summer since it opened, the Hospital de Alta Resolución de Estepona is running as more than an outpatient shell. The SAS announced in November 2025 that 58 approved posts would take the workforce from 78 to 136 and bring the centre to about 80 per cent of its planned service portfolio, with a 24-hour laboratory and radiology service and a surgical block (traumatology, dermatology, general and digestive surgery, the pain unit, then urology) to follow. Those were announcements; we have not verified the centre’s current service portfolio item by item, so confirm with the centre which services it now provides before relying on it.
What this means in practice: if you live in Estepona, Manilva, Casares or Sabinillas, some urgent care and diagnostics may no longer require the trip to Hospital Costa del Sol in Marbella. Scheduled activity at the Estepona centre is still ramping up, so the summer plan’s slowdown applies there too. If a pending GP referral points you at Marbella for something the Estepona centre now provides, ask for the referral to be reviewed.
If you have a pending surgery, referral or test
The summer plan runs to 4 October, and the national doctors’ strike is announced for Wednesday 28 October. The moves below work at any point in that stretch, in order of leverage:
- Confirm you are actually on the register, and check the date. Surgery, first consultations and diagnostics each have an official waiting register (registro de demanda), and the legal clock runs from registration: for a first specialist consultation the registration date is the date of your GP’s request, for a diagnostic test the date the request is presented, for surgery the date on your registration document (Decreto 96/2004 and Decreto 209/2001). A referral letter that was never registered starts nothing, and a registration entered late should carry the request date, not the day it was typed in. Check your inscription date in ClicSalud+ or by ringing Salud Responde on 955 54 50 60.
- Chase anything dated between now and the end of October. If you hold an appointment or a provisional surgery date at one of the centres above, ring the service and ask directly whether it survives the summer plan and where it sits against the announced strike. Postponement letters can arrive late.
- Front-load prescriptions and pre-op work. Repeat prescriptions, pre-operative tests and anything requiring your named specialist are worth landing before the strike announced for 28 October rather than during it.
- Know your rights if the date slips. Andalucía guarantees maximum waits by decree, and a summer postponement does not by itself pause them (a clinical suspension ordered in your case can). The mechanism, and what you can claim when a deadline passes, is in our guide to the Andalucía surgery time guarantee.
There is also a second wave behind this one. The national doctors’ strike committee announced on 11 September 2026 that its indefinite strike over the Estatuto Marco (the framework statute governing health service employment) is to begin on Wednesday 28 October 2026, subject to the committee’s later decisions, which means a referral postponed out of the summer may land in a strike month. The full picture, and the same chase-it-early logic, is in our public healthcare strike playbook.
How postponement meets the time guarantee
Andalucía’s guarantee decrees give registered patients maximum waits of 180 or 120 days for listed surgery (90 for specified cardiac surgery), 60 days for a first specialist consultation and 30 days for listed diagnostic tests, counted in calendar days: consultations and tests from the day after registration, surgery from the date on the registration document. Nothing in the decrees suspends those clocks for the Plan de Verano, though a clinical suspension ordered in an individual case can. If a summer postponement carries you past your deadline on a covered procedure, the guarantee lets you invoke care in an authorised private centre with the cost met by the public system up to the amount the SAS accredits, after you obtain its authorisation, subject to real-world caveats about tariffs and paperwork. The important distinction: the guarantee survives when the system postpones you, but you can lose it by unjustified refusal or postponement of an offered date. Details, numbers and the claim path are in the guarantee guide.
When private makes sense during the plan
For a genuine emergency, público remains the right answer year-round; the emergency departments are open, free at the point of use for those covered, and are where major trauma is treated. Where private earns its keep in a reduced-capacity month is the stuck middle: a first consultation that is not going to happen before the strike, a diagnostic test you would rather not carry into it, a second opinion while a public clock runs. A one-off private consultation is a routine purchase here and requires no insurance policy. For the fuller decision logic, including where private coverage is thin, see public vs private healthcare in Spain and what healthcare actually costs in Spain.
The five-minute version
- The SAS plans reduced capacity from July to September every year; 2026’s plan forecast 85.7 per cent of beds and 75.9 per cent of theatres available across Andalucía, and runs to 4 October.
- Per the Sindicato Médico de Málaga’s account of the plan: Virgen de la Victoria a planned maximum of 86 beds and six theatres from 3 to 30 August, Benalmádena’s HAR all three theatres 3 to 30 August, Valle del Guadalhorce all four theatres 17 to 30 August, the Regional four ICU beds.
- Emergency departments do not close for the plan. In Málaga’s district, five health centres kept night urgencias points through the summer: Churriana, Cruz de Humilladero, El Palo, Puerta Blanca, Rincón de la Victoria.
- Costa del Sol health centres lost their afternoons on staggered dates (per the Sindicato Médico de Málaga): most to 13 September, Fuengirola Oeste to 20 September, Los Pacos to 27 September; Marbella’s Leganitos and Ricardo Soriano and Torremolinos’s La Carihuela on Friday afternoons only. Ring before an afternoon visit.
- Anything pending, chase it now: confirm your register inscription date via ClicSalud+ or Salud Responde (955 54 50 60), verify appointments between now and the end of October, front-load prescriptions. The indefinite doctors’ strike is announced for 28 October.
- Guarantee clocks do not pause for the summer plan. A system postponement past 180/120/60/30 days on a covered procedure lets you invoke authorised private care at public expense, up to the accredited amount.
Related guides
- Andalucía’s Surgery Time Guarantee: When the Public System Misses Its Own Deadline, Private Care Is Free
- When Spanish Public Healthcare Strikes: Minimum Services, Your Rights, and the Referral Chase
- Hospital Costa del Sol: The Expat’s Guide
- Public vs Private Healthcare in Spain
- Healthcare Costs in Spain
- Wait-Time Reimbursement Help
General information, current as of 18 September 2026. Sources for the dated section: the SAS Plan de Verano 2026 release (11 June 2026); Sindicato Médico de Málaga statements on the plan as reported by Andalucía Información (1 July 2026), El Español Málaga (1 and 15 July 2026) and La Opinión de Málaga (14 July 2026, health-centre afternoon closures by district); the strike committee’s announcement of 11 September 2026 (CESM and Sindicato Médico Andaluz); Decreto 209/2001, Decreto 96/2004 and the Orders of 18 March 2005, 20 December 2006 and 2 June 2016 of the Junta de Andalucía. Closure figures are the unions’ accounts of the plan and have not been itemised hospital by hospital by the SAS. An earlier version of this guide printed the 2025 seafront centre closures as if they were 2026’s; corrected 18 September 2026.
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