Email
October 4
Dear Editor,
What has happened to the wonderful Spanish healthcare system we hear so much about?
I’ve just been told by my doctor that I have to go to the hospital reception at Torrevieja hospital to complain that my appointment to see a digestive consultant has not been sent to me yet. I live around 25 kilometres away.
The request for an endoscopy to discover problems with a hiatus hernia problem I am having was sent on June 16 this year. The doctor was not surprised by my having to wait nearly three months as she explained there is only one digestive specialist in the whole of the Torrevieja region.
She suggested I could go private but she couldn’t do anything herself to query the delay. Not even make a simple phone call. After five years as a resident here my Spanish is passable but she told me not to bother calling as they wouldn’t answer.
I often see in this newspaper how the waiting times for operations are coming down all the time but no one mentions the delays in seeing a specialist to get a procedure to diagnose health problems. I’ve heard similar stories from friends regarding MRI appointments, etc. My doctor told me that a patient had just come back to her after waiting two years to see a digestive specialist. I can’t complain about appointment times in the local surgery as they are excellent but the follow up procedures need some urgent investigating into why these appointments are taking so long.
K.P.
