Hi again folks. I wear an SOS bracelet as I am on Methotrexate and Steroids, I was in a local English bar the other day and someone told me that this form of bracelet was not recognised as medical in Spain and that paramedics wouldn't even bother looking at it...

Can some one tell me if this is so as it's quite worrying if anything should happen to me

It's said that the ambulance drivers are more interested in how they will be paid.

I suggest you enquire in your local health centre whether they think this would work in your area. But probably not so keep a translation of these facts with your health card.

Many thanks for that Spainrico.. I'll do that.

Keep us posted what you discover.

I keep my old UK National Blood Service card in my wallet to inform people in the event of an emergency my blood group. Working on the theory they are universally understood.

They are universally understood, but I have not met a doctor anywhere in the world who would trust their colleagues work in this aspect - they always check themselves the blood group. Because the responsibility is too high and will lie only on them, not on the person who made the first test.

During his illness my husband had many, many transfusions and they always did fresh blood tests for matching even though they had all of his details on their system. Even though the transfusion people knew him very well they always double checked the details with us before giving him the blood. Safe practice.

Rosemary

The main reason for doing that is that, if someone has had a previous transfusion, they many have developed antibodies due to some very rare component of the blood they were given, so they have to do it all again, it's just safe practice. Even if someone has had a transfusion 3 days before, and been in hospital all the time, then it would all be retested for the same reason, it's just good custom and practice. There are something like 50 or 60 minor blood groups that could be present, in the vast majority of cases they pose no threat, but if someone developes a strong antibody to one of these, then it can be very serious if the compatibility isn't checked.

In 30 months he was given about 70 bags of blood so their safe practice was very evident, luckily he had no problems from these transfusions. We used to laugh and say that he had become Spanish my default because he had no English blood anymore.

Rosemary