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Friday, October 12, 2007

Medical Merriment!

My anomalous status continues to confuse the Spanish medical system.

The medical centre to which I am now (at least partially) affiliated has reached the stage where I have been allocated a doctor and I have even managed to see him. That was the simple bit.

The consultation went quite well. The doctor spoke passable English and with my little Spanish (how quaintly ambiguous that description is) we managed to communicate. I now am booked in for a blood test and god knows what.

The medication that I take was discussed and the confusion about the different ways in which the essential working element in the medication is dressed up with national trade names caused some confusion at first, but that was soon sorted out and I had a list of Spanish equivalents for the three drugs that I take.

The 75mg of aspirin now has become 100mg which is neither here nor there. The real surprise was the Glucosamine and chondroitin tablet that I take. This doctor refused to betaken in by the popular support for its influence on arthritis and he said that he couldn’t prescribe it. There was not medical evidence for it to have any effect on arthritic limbs so he couldn’t in all conscience add it to my list. So there!

Having had a very uncomfortable day with clicking knees (just before a turbulent electrical storm – can that be significant?) and having faithfully taken the Glucosamine and chondroitin tablets which had a signal lack of effect I did not feel like gainsaying him. Out they go!

The consultation, as I said, went well. He handed me a few documents, told me to go to room 17 to get my medication and then give the rest to reception who would arrange the further appointments.

That’s when things started to go wrong in a now fully recognizable way.

The pharmacist refused to give me any medication because I did not have my number. As far as I could understand from her torrent of Spanish, My Number (I feel that the capitalization is necessary) would probably be ‘somewhere’ in four days or so. Therefore my “Proxima semana?” which was greeted with stern amusement, seemed a positive step towards getting my prescriptions filled which is the only reason that I want a doctor.

So, empty handed, yet, paradoxically optimistic, I turned my attention to the reception desk.

My documents were accepted and a few cursory finger taps on the computer keyboard were sufficient to elicit that ‘I-can-do-nothing-you-don’t-have-a-number’ look which I have grown to recognize at its first frown. The deluge of Spanish at this point was overwhelming and, apart from the general negativity, I understood nothing.

Reinforcements were brought in and a man appeared from behind the filing cabinets who engaged me in a conversation that I have had at least five or six times before over that very counter.

The details of what he said and what he asked are not really relevant, but they do vividly illustrate the fact that no one appears to know what anyone else is doing or has done as far as individual patients are concerned. And I wonder what use the bloody computer is: they spend ages typing information into it, but that seems to be an en in itself and not part of some coherent database which might conceivably help anyone.

This time the debate was concluded by my showing my European Health Card (which I have shown on every other occasion) which had an immediate effect this time and was accepted as important and finished the debate.

I feel more and more as if I am a hapless character in a second rate Kafka short story. Though, there again, ‘Metamorphosis’; ‘The Great Wall of China’ and ‘In the Penal Colony’ are a more accurate reflection of the world in which we live in that ‘Cinderella’; ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ even if the latter three have a greater currency and recognition than the first three!

We will see if the exasperated, “Oh just do it!” approach of the administrator on the penultimate visit to the doctor translates itself into some sort of tangible card with a number that the computer recognizes. That will be achievement and ‘K’ will have managed to emerge successfully from the rigors of ‘The Trial.’

Robert and Antonia arrived today after a gruelling bus journey, long over night flight and another flight this morning. At least their room in Hotel Playafels has a vista del mar! Where they found the energy to go into Barcelona when they have another flight early tomorrow to Seville I don’t know!

They will sleep well – I only hope that their early morning alarm manages to cut through their deep repose!

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