Me duelen los oidos

My son Mikey developed a bad earache during our vacation so we had to quickly learn all about the Spanish healthcare system. The first place we went was for specialists so that wasn't any good -- I managed to tell the receptionist about Mikey's earache in Spanish, and she said we needed to go somewhere else in another town.

I liked this sign in the waiting area:


In the meantime, Mel was trying to get the insurance company in England to authorize treatment -- we waited and tried to get more information from the medical offices where we were -- then I understood her Spanish pretty well when she informed us that the main medical offices in the next town closed for siesta in an hour. That put a fire under us. We drove to the next town and ran into an office with a Red Cross on it but it wasn't the right place. The clock was ticking, and Mikey was in pain and feeling nauseous.

We finally found the big public health center where no one spoke a word of English, and I discovered that you must have a medical tarjeta (a card) for any treatment at all. Mel was trying to get a card number from the insurance company in England and kept calling them then they said it's a Bank Holiday in England so there's no one around to do the admin work on that. (How come they didn't know that the first time he called?)

So then it was from Spanish public healthcare to a private doctor -- the only tarjeta he needed to see was a credit card (his office was so swish that he even had pieces of candy in the waiting room with his own branded wrappers on them, like we were in some upscale restaurant).


It turned out that Mikey has a very bad infection with one ear almost swollen shut so he has to take a lot of medicine and can't swim in the pool or in the sea for the rest of our trip. Pobrecito!

I loved this sign in one of the medical centers that we visited today.

Please don't throw your cigarettes on the floor!