Doctors won't treat Brits who don't speak Spanish

[Joanne98]

Dark side of sunny Spain for Britain's elderly expatriates

Doctors are refusing to treat English patients without an interpreter

Jackie Stevens in Denia, Costa Blanca
Sunday July 9, 2006
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1816158,00.html

It is a familiar sight in any British hospital. Older women in blue sashes staffing a makeshift charity stall in a busy corridor. But here in Denia hospital on Spain's Costa Blanca, the volunteers have no time to serve tea. The expat-run charity Help is indispensable, providing interpreting and sometimes nursing and aftercare for the growing number of British patients that pass through here.
Tens of thousands of British settlers pursuing a dream retirement in the sun have doubled the population in this area in the past two years - and put a growing strain on a creaking Spanish health service.

Now Spanish authorities say they are placing an unbearable burden on scant medical resources and are demanding that the UK pays for their care. And in a move likely to send a chill through the expat community, Spanish doctors - even those who speak English - are now refusing to treat anyone who cannot speak Spanish without an interpreter present.

Jill Porter Smith, 75, who retired here from Cambridge 25 years ago, volunteers at Denia Hospital five days a week. 'Most of our clinics now have a sign over the door saying, "Non-Spanish speakers will not be seen without an interpreter," but with only a handful speaking fluent Spanish in a community of over 40,000, our volunteers are stretched to the limit. It's not unusual to deal with British people who have lived here over 20 years and complain about medical staff not speaking English. Because waiters and barmen speak English, they expect doctors to.'
.

She says expats abuse the system by using health facilities without registering as residents. 'Many are relocating to Spain and receiving medical treatment for serious conditions more quickly and of a high standard unavailable to them on their own NHS but, as many of these are 'invisible' residents and have no appropriate medical cover, Spain is recouping only a fraction of the costs of treating them,' she told fellow ministers.
.

So authorities on the Costas are cracking down, ordering doctors to ask for documentation before treatment Gutierez, an MEP for Murcia on the Costa Blanca, said: 'There is a huge cost to Spain because they have not been contributing to our health service. British officials think everything is fine because their citizens are getting everything free, but it's not.'


Oh the irony.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. But they are not Americans, so the riechwing will

not notice.

[Joanne98]

2. I don't get it.

[Bobbieo]

3. In Case Of An Emergency

Has always been my argument for non-English speaking people who come to this country to learn English. Knowing English is not racist issue, it might become be a matter of life or death.

[mcscajun]

4. Poor planning on the part of the expats.

Know the culture, the language, and the medical coverage before you pick some foreign country as your retirement home. Some of these Brits put themselves in quite a pickle: living six months in Spain, six months in the UK put them in medical limbo. Considered residents of Spain by the UK government, yet not eligible for Spain's NHS either. Lesson to be learned by anyone planning to move to another state, another country: Research and Learn As MUCH as you can BEFORE you move.

"In the event of an emergency, these individuals can find themselves helpless. They don't know the language, they don't know the system, and only too late they find they have no medical cover."

(snip)

Pauline Tolley, 62, was not so lucky. Her husband, John, 68, became ill with cancer and spent the last weeks of his life in a hospital in Murcia. As is the custom in most Spanish hospitals, she did the nursing. "The Spanish have large families so they can rotate shifts but most British people here have only one family member with them." She lived in his ward, sleeping in an armchair, changing his bedpan and feeding him until he died last month.

(snip)

The president of Age Concern in Spain, Angela Keay, said they had 12,000 calls last year from elderly Brits. "Most retire out here when they are fit and active and don't think beyond finding the best restaurants and the nearest golf course. Too late they discover the Spanish have few care homes and little social services or day-care for the elderly. We frequently have to arrange for individuals in an isolated, destitute state to move back to the UK and into residential care. This is happening on a huge scale and, with the numbers of people flooding in, the situation is going to get worse."

[Joanne98]

5. Americans have been retiring in Mexico. Are they learning Spanish?

I bet not.

[mcscajun]

6. Probably not...they're more than likely just as clueless as their British

counterparts, and living close to the border or in mostly American communities.

Hell, we have clueless types right here who move to Florida from Northeastern cities, and are back in short order because they didn't do the research. For many it's the lifestyle and the weather, for others it's the difference in medical care.

[Bobbieo]

7. Most of them - most of them are!!!

At least enough to be understood in an emergency situation.

[Joanne98]

8. That's good.

[Joanne98]

9. kick