Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

I'm sure that's true about different areas. Possibly the resort areas with the largest number of foreign tourists are where this type of thing is more likely to happen - tourists being taken to private hospitals or clinics by taxi drivers certainly is. Btw, I've also read stories about foreign tourists staying in British hotels who have needed to call a doctor asking the hotel to help and being attended by private GPs which the hotel has an arrangement with (and getting the resulting large bill), although they could have been taken to A&E instead.

I think the point you make about needing insurance as well is a good one, our friends did have travel insurance too although luckily it wasn't needed. As was mentioned on a recent TV holiday programme I saw, people really do need to have their passports and EHIC, plus travel insurance documents, with them when they are out and about as they are not much use back at the hotel. The programme stopped a number of tourist in the street and asked them about this, and only one person was actually carrying them. Not all hospitals might be as understanding as my local one.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

So just because you as a visitor had no trouble getting medicines, are you saying that there was no crisis in October/November of last year?

You may have had no trouble buying them, but I can assure you that the people who have more uncommon tablets were sailing close to the wind as regards running out and not being able to get more.

The chemists worked with each other and for their regular customers did a lot of borrowing/lending between themselves, as the did not want to let them customers down.

If you had stuck around a bit longer you might have seen more than one person sweating because they were not sure what was going to happen.

But as usual your take on every given subject is based of a small window of time in the grander scale of things.

But as usual you will say it is all lies.

http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2012/11/...74_201392.html


and the 4500 farmacists that marched in the protest in the link below, did it just of a day off then, did they?

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/1...352475586.html



In the following link it tells how the more expensive prescription medicines were the ones that were in more danger of running out.



http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/1...352293031.html

But as usual you will say it is all lies, either that or El Pais and El Mundo have got it all wrong,:blink: you would think they would have got the hang of this reporting business by now.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Since you've not given one shred of evidence ie a BBC link or a EU report, not sure how you can "rest your case".
I see Me-Me's rushed into the attack too. Doesn't matter whether it's JL or MM, aggy, J2 or DD result is the same. The same tag-team members following the same line. Too obvious.:thumbdown:
I apologise - I base my actions partly on my own observations, but also on real experiences from those without an agenda to follow. For example, we may fall out over many issues, but if AmisdeIsles had something to report, I'd listen carefully. It's an important issue, which is why it needs to be discussed by those with real and unbiased knowledge. Not the knee-jerk "Spain bad UK good" goon squad.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Do you know how silly you sound, always denying what others say if it goes against your ideas about utopia Spain?

Using your logic, that if you don´t see it, it is not happening, we would all be like you.

example.

There a no guns in the USA, because I went there to visit a friend and nobody pulled a gun on me.

BTW I have no agenda, and you keep repeating yourself about that, is it perhaps because you have?

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Me me, you've gone on the attack, same as J2, DD, plenty of times. But it's the fact you storm to each others' defence with your stance already decided in a knee-jerk position, that means I rate your input as biased and not worth listening to.

There are plenty of posters here who disagree with me - AmisdesIsles is the obvious one, but others spring to mind like HBG or Missile or Rotor. Plenty of posters too, who agree with me on some things, disagree on others.
If any poster here, apart from the obvious anti-Spain grouping (you, J2, DD and Aggy) can produce genuine instances of this conspiracy to send to private hospital happening in reality - I'll be the first one to sit up and take notice. It potentially affects us all - and remember this site gets 100s of different posters. It really is not about scoring points, or "resting cases". It's an important allegation, as yet with very little confirmed evidence.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Learn to read, I have not mentioned anything about "instances of this conspiracy to send to private hospitals", so I do not need to back up what I didn´t say.:confused:
Í have not heard first hand about it happening, we live in a Spanish city, and my contact with expats is rather limited, except by visits and skype.

I told you about what was happening towards the end of the year in a large number of Chemists where we live and just because you had no problem buying a few non-prescription tablets while on a short visit does not mean that everyone else was not experiencing problems.

You accuse everyone of having an agenda, what is yours?

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

No I don't accuse everyone of having an agenda.
In fact that's how I detect who does! - they've made the allegation first!

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

I am not going to argue with you, but I suppose your agenda must have something to do with your website.

BTW instead of denying that we have knowledge of and looking for more and more and more and more good news threads and IT start ups, maybe you could give try and give the building bridges webshite a bit of a tweak.

IT could do with a bit of a tidy up.

As the translations are rather weird to say the least.:o



Aprendiendo un idioma en tu propio país antes de viajar

April 15th, 2013

Learning a language in your own country before travelling

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Again, you're trying to get personal, just like Dick. For the record, if you think my website is a great earner, you're way off beam - but thanks for publicising it. :rofl: yikes - you're not in India just now???
There are going to be people here wanting further information on this "conspiracy to push ill people into using private hospitals" - so I think I'll leave you to your illusions game, it's not helping anyone.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

I would like to know, in order to gain an understanding of the real scale of this reported problem, how many British tourists WERE treated in Spanish state hospitals last year on production of an EHIC. I'm sure the Department of Health must have figures as presumably the bill goes to them. I wonder why the journalists didn't obtain the information and quote that?

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Read my post again

I have already explained that I have not commented on the CONSPIRACY TO PUSH ILL PEOPLE INTO USING PRIVATE HOSPITALS, I cannot make myself any clearer.

Again, I will repeat, I MADE A COMMENT ABOUT PEOPLE I ACTUALLY KNOW WHO HAD PROBLEMS WITH GETTING THEIR PRESCRITION AT THE TAIL END ON LAST YEAR..
I cannot make myself any clearer.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

Why would they need to mention it?

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

In the interests of putting a problem into perspective (now that would be a novelty as far as journalists are concerned!). If 50 people had reported being turned away from a state hospital with an EHIC and 500 people had been treated on production of an EHIC, then it's a significant problem. However, if 50 were turned away and 50,000 were treated, it's less of one.

I didn't hear the radio programme that sparked this thread, but probably it was along the same lines as this article from the Telegraph?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...HIC-usage.html

There are no figures quoted as to how many cases have been reported, but it does state that these have largely arisen in the "hybrid sector" of hospitals run by the private sector but state-funded.

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

The UK has obviously taken action only on the basis of the number of cases actually reported.
These may well only be the tip of the Iceberg ?

In addition the EU has similar reports from various other EU countries. There are 27 in all, plus 4 others signed up to the same agreement, so it's unlikely that accurate figures relating to the true extent of the problem will ever be known.

Suffice to say that both the EU and the UK consider it serious enough to lodge a complaint based on what evidence they have to date.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with your link.
Clearly it is happening and surely its best that would-be holidaymakers are forewarned and forearmed, regardless of how widespread the problem turns out to be.


"So acute has the problem become that the European Commission has warned Spain that it could take formal legal action, known as an "infringement procedure", after receiving complaints from various EU nationals about the refusal of EHIC cards."

Re: Spanish Hospitals.....
 

We can only hope and pray that some poor unsuspecting newbie doesn't look to Stevies website as a source of accurate unbiased information.

Doesn't really bear thinking about. :huh: