These are buildings designed to treat patients with diseases and injuries that are too complex for them to go home or to provide the public with primary care.
Normally such centres also have a reception service for visitors or phone calls. The service responds directly to specific queries, such as providing or collecting documentation, obtaining information in person or by phone or scheduling doctor’s visits or the diagnostic tests usually carried out at primary care centres (such as spirometry or ECG).
Health centres usually have:
Offices for the physicians, nurses and services.
Different areas, sometimes separate, for taking blood and other samples for testing.
Emergency care areas, fitted with the right equipment: treatment cart, electrocardiograph, oxygen therapy materials, defibrillator, emergency medication, etc.