HBG

I'm not an expert on anything. but I've lived in Spain for many years and volunteer to work for local charities who support expats. We come across a multitude of expat problems on a daily basis, and we've seen a vast increase of late probably due to the high numbers that arrived around 2006, just before the crash, and are now desperate to leave as their money has run out and they can't sell their houses at any price.

Maybe someone can advise on this one: a recent arrival has developed a severe mental illness, doesn't speak a word of Spanish and we want to get him home. He refuses to get on an aeroplane or even into a car. Without breaking the law, we can't see a way to get him the treatment he desperately needs back in the UK. The Spanish system, good as it is, can't help him.

missile

In UK, I would ask a doctor if he could be sectioned under the mental health act. I would have thought Spain has an equivalent?

Spanish medical facilities are far better than in the UK.

HBG

The system in Spain is very similar to the UK, but normally the police are involved, the person is taken to a police station where a doctor sections him. He is then placed in a secure mental institution, normally inside one of the major prisons, for treatment.

That's where the problem arises, the staff in those places don't speak English and much communication is needed for suitable treatment. I don't think interpreters are viable because of the lengthy sessions involved.

My wife is an interpreter and has been for years, and often gives her services for free in suitable cases, but I wouldn't let her anywhere near this guy, he's big and strong and is getting increasingly violent.

jennieJ

God that reminds me of that case that ended up on the front page of the Sun Or some such similar rag where a bunch of expats got fed up looking after their elderly Dad, so brought him over dumped him at Dover or some such place and did a quick runner - why should he be forced back to the UK if he doesn't want to go there seems cruel, even if he has developed mental illness it should be his decision to leave Spain or not.

My own view in the case were relatives dumped the old boy at Dover or outside a hospital is that it should have been against the law (well the law of the way one human should treat another) and they should have been brought back to the UK and prosecuted. I bet they said it was for his benefit - yeah right

Are you sure the mental,institutions in Spain don't have some English speaking staff ? Sounds unlikely to me. Hospitals have all levels of staff from Professionals to cleaners, I'm sure some of the more educated should have levels of English enough to give adequate diagnosis and treatment if he really needs sectioning, his needs will be similar to other nationalities they have in there.

HBG

I can safely assure you that psychiatric institutions in Spain do not have English speaking staff. I can also safely assure you that you can't treat mental illness in a foreign language.

I don't know of that lurid case you refer to with the father being dumped at Dover, perhaps the children knew that if their father went into a Spanish psychiatric institution without being able to speak Spanish at a high level, he would never come out and suffer a horrible end to life.

In the case I'm talking about we're trying to save a former respectable Englishman, a former lay magistrate, from ending his life, in agony, in what would amount to a Spanish prison.

We're debating putting him in a pet carrier, sedating him, driving him through the tunnel to safety in London at high risk to ourselves.

I suppose you would rather stick him in a Spanish prison and abandon him.

I don't agree with you.

jjh

That is absolute crap. I know first hand what it´s like in Spain to have a so called mental health problem. I don´t often say this but I have been prompted by your post because you know nothing. I have clinical depression which, in the UK, was absolutely ignored. I had an ´episode´ (extreme) here in Spain and I was given instant access to a counsellor and a psychiatrist ( English speaking), together with medication. In the UK I was dismissed.

You´re talking about people with degenerative brain disease. We know of someone who was so ill she was put in what you call a ´Spanish Prison´. She was well looked after for over 3 years until she passed over. To be sure it cost but, after having my mother in law in a care home for 4 years, I know that.

Anyway, what the heck does this mean in relation to the original post?

HBG

It's ever so tempting to be rude back. 'You're talking crap and know nothing'.

Well, sunshine, let me educate you. Most of us long term expats have come across enough nutters in our time to know what we're talking about.

Of course we feel sorry for people who suffer from clinical depression, schizophrenia and a host of other things. But it's not our fault, we didn't cause people to become nutters and we help them when we can.

But, faced with rudeness, we will respond to the nutters.

jennieJ

Why would he be ending his life in agony, how do you know that at this point in time ? Has he no family looking out for him in Spain, he must have some kind of roof over his head and means if support, or are you saying he is living rough?

No I wouldn't rather stick him in a Spanish prison and have no idea how you make that assumption from my post it isn't what I said at all.

Also I'm a bit confused about what this has to do with the original post.

Rosemary

Please refrain from calling mental health patients "nutters".

Rosemary

Sue

I've moved the mental health posts from the Ciudad Quesada as they were derailing the other thread.

And I agree with Rosemary, no need to throw derogatory words around, far too many people have been affected by, or seen a family member going through, mental health issues and the word that's been used in this thread is degrading and insulting and I would ask that it is not used again. One can get one's point across more eloquently by choosing one's words carefully, there are enough words in the English language ... there's no need to skimp.

Thank you


As you were ....

jonboy

Well GBH! I imagine that you would have broken so many laws on your trip to the UK with your unconscious, unwilling possibly physically and mentally ill new found friend that you would spend many months if not years in quiet reflection at her majesty’s pleasure.
I appreciate that you seem to believe that Spain has some kind of medieval health care service.
Take him to a doctor or a doctor to him. He may have suffered a stroke or other head injury, he may have an infection, he could be delirious from too much/ lack of alcohol and perhaps he is otherwise intoxicated? Would you scoop a road accident victim up and take him to the UK, no of course not.
Nice of you to care though.

IamStu

You talk about others "rudeness" yet your post, without doubt is the most offensive I have read on this forum.
In the plaza toros section, some banter is thrown around and generally in good taste.
However, to refer to a person with mental illness as a "nutter" is quite disgraceful.

HBG

I admit I shouldn't have called the relevant poster a 'nutter', I should have ignored his rather silly post, which is what I usually do when confronted with such posts.

The troubled expat mentioned in my earlier posts has now been sectioned and is detained in a secure Spanish mental institution. We have referred his worried family to an English-speaking Spanish lawyer with experience in such complicated matters.

jonboy

Good, it sounds like he will now have some investigations, treatment if required and a place of safety in the mean time. Saved a lot of porridge and petrol I imagine.

jonboy

Well done, you and your friends provided a valuable service in trying circumstances.