Article on Cutting-edge Spanish healthcare

There's an interesting article about the Spanish healthcare system in The Guardian today. They've been running a series of articles about various aspects of Spain all week - not hugely in-depth, but containing lots of good information. There was a good one yesterday about Al-Andalus and the attempts of Spanish Muslims to adopt an ecumenical approach - a refreshingly different slant from the Daily Heil's hysterical take on Islam. If you're interested in the other articles, go to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and do a search within the site on New Europe.

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The comments about family involvement aren't always the case. When my husband had cancer surgery at San Cecilio he had excellent nursing care and when I had my hip replacement in Baza hospital last year there was no family member able to care for me, and I too had excellent nursing care. There are some on here who know we've recently had an appalling experience at Virgen de las Nieves hospital, but that was caused by poor management & lack of communications in one institution. The nursing care was fine.

Maybe this could be the Good News to balance the Bad News about fun-sized Kit Kats on the Food & Drink thread??

I have had excellent care whilst here. In fact, after decades of NHS investigations for various problems and no results or conclusions, the Spanish healthcare have identified a potentially life threatening condition in me in less than 6 months. I am hugely thankful for their quick and thorough investigations, and for the very simple solution they have given me.

As well as giving me the opportunity to fulfil one of my biggest desires to have children, with their discovery they have dramatically reduced a plethora of symptoms I suffered which were extremely life restricting. I now have hope where I pretty much had none, on many levels. In addition of course, they have also given me awareness of a life threatening condition which could have shortened my life if it wasn't managed.

I'll be forever grateful for what's happened for me and my husband in the health system here, and have every hope for the future.

That's great news, Cave Bunny - what a relief for you! x

And I,would defiantly would not be here if it wasn't for the Spanish Heath care.

Months of chemotherapy,2 large operations,1 of which was life saving.

Returning to the Uk,to be told by a consultant here,that that operation that I had in Spain, may not have been carried out!!. Ongoing treatment and care is slower over here in Uk, Spain was fast,caring,efficient and superior in their treatment.

I'm still around today because of the Spanish healthcare

And that's a FACT

Big col xxxxxx

Still

Viva la espania!!

That's definitely cause for celebration, Col!

The treatment my husband is now receiving for his Parkinson's is revolutionary (only just out of the experimental stage) and although theoretically available in the UK, he'd have been much less likely to receive it there. It's making a big difference to his mobility. It costs a vast amount of money, all paid for by the Spanish healthcare system, which seems a bit unfair, given that the UK's had all our tax and NHI contributions. It's completely unavailable in the US, because of the insurance-based system - no insurer would underwrite such a financial outlay.

One of the interesting points in the article above is that there are no plans to cut healthcare services in Spain. The outlay is a small proportion of GDP and regarded as affordable, even in these straitened times. They seem to have worked out how to do it.

The Guardian link Jenny's suggesting in her first post on this topic is well worth following. There are some great articles on different aspects of modern Spain and Spanish life. Well worth a read. Thanks for the tip, Jenny!

Thanks, Sal. Unfortunately, the route I provided isn't the best, I've now discovered. The search facility on The Guardian's website isn't brilliant. You can access far more articles by going to the main website ([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] scrolling about halfway down and clicking on the "New Europe - Spain" link (2nd column from right). On the next page to appear, again scroll about halfway down and click on the "In full: our Spain week coverage link" (centre column). This takes you to 4 pages of articles on Spain - dozens of them, from how to make perfect patatas bravas to the state of the solar industry.