It’s not often that you find an organization that you can cordially detest more than Microsoft.
Trying to register with a doctor has exhausted my patience and my Spanish.
I will not bore you with the details of why it should be so difficult for a British citizen to register with a Spanish doctor; I will merely recount the efforts that I have made to achieve recognition by the medical authorities.
The last time that I tried to register it all ended in metaphorical tears with Toni in a towering rage, as angry as I have ever seen him, and with me flouncing out of the medical centre in stratospheric, incandescent dudgeon. The final straw was being told by some androgynous unqualified pipsqueak lording it behind the reception desk that it would be quite impossible for them to photocopy my passport (a photocopy of which they had demanded) because, “we are not a photocopy shop.”
After laying my hands reverently on a copy of the more impenetrable writings of Lao Tzu I felt at one with the universe and calm enough to attempt ‘The Medical Centre – The Return!’
After explaining my position and asking to be registered events followed a tediously familiar pattern. This institution’s answer to everything is, “You need to go to Gava.” Gava (the town next to Castelldefels) is where the Social Security Centre resides.
Having done this previously, I laughed and joked with the ‘expert’ who had been rolled out to deal with my request and resigned myself to another futile journey, but at least it would get the medical ball rolling again.
The traffic jam on the motorway stretched from just a few hundred yards along the journey to the outskirts of Gava itself. Unfortunately I had left my volume of Lao Tzu in the flat so I was not able to avail myself of the calming wisdom of the Oriental sage. Instead I contented myself with fuming in the stationary traffic and then after a snail’s pace progression wild vituperation at the inconsiderate drivers who refused to let me get to the turn off.
I was being guided by my electronic navigator which unfortunately had not been informed of the random street closures that turned the streets of Gava into a labyrinthine mess.
By more luck than judgement and with little help from the increasingly hysterical navigator I eventually found a car park and trekked to the social security office. After a long wait I was seen and informed that I shouldn’t have come to Gava.
What I needed to do was go back to the Medical Centre and ask to see the requisite person (the one who sent me to Gava in the first place) and get it sorted.
Back at the medical centre the ‘expert’ was not convinced and actually phoned Gava for clarification. The upshot of this was, that, as I was in the middle of deploying a blizzard of papers ranging from my baptism certificate (which includes my middle name, which my birth certificate does not – a long story, some other time perhaps) to my blood group card, the ‘expert’ told me that I would have to return to Gava. There I would merely need to flash my passport, NIE and padron and everything would be fine.
After the return to Gava avoiding the motorway and ignoring the electronic navigator and after a further long wait, I was told (I think you’ve probably guessed this, haven’t you?) that I needn’t have returned to Gava and I should go back to the Medical Centre and tell them to register me in a particular way. The officials in Gava, who are genuinely helpful, were concerned at my pointless journeying and referred to me as ‘pobre hombre.’ This time the woman who was seeing to me actually wrote something on the back of a piece of paper to tell the [expletive deleted] staff of the medical centre what they should do. Rather touchingly she added an official stamp to her scrawl to give it added gravitas.
Returning to the medical centre I handed over the scrap of paper now adorned with the inky smudge of authority and waited for my registration. The demand for papers was easily met and everything appeared to be going well until I was triumphantly informed by a stony faced receptionist that the padron was out of date. The dreaded word ‘manaña’ was then used – the kiss of death to any possibility of bureaucratic completion.
I, however, was filled with the light of possibilities and determined that I would not be stymied and I headed the car towards the station car park to make an assault on the town hall to get a new padron. No spaces were available in the car park and you have to see the car park to know what that means. All reasonable spaces had been taken together with spaces that didn’t really exist in this universe; spaces so unbelievable that you had to have great faith to squeeze the car through them.
At that point I almost gave up and went home, but a wrong turning took me into town and a car leaving (eventually) a space which was too good to resist.
As usual the people in the town hall were kindliness itself and, in spite of the long wait to be seen, I soon had a new padron in my clutches.
I returned, yet again, to my now customary parking space near the medical centre and made my final attempt to be registered with a doctor.
It was, needless to say, a failure. The people I needed to see were not to be seen and, in spite of waiting (!) I eventually saw a person who told me definitively that I would have to come back later.
I did and, with Toni’s incredulous help, I did, eventually manage to get myself registered with a doctor. The disturbing thing is that my registration was eventually decided by exasperated diktat rather than by the meticulous following of rules.
I have a doctor on a whim rather than by right.
We went out for a meal to celebrate.
Incidentally, Toni, who with his identity card was assured that his medical card would be a formality and be with him within a month, is bereft! Computer failure has ensured that his card is now a mass of wandering pixels and he will have to go through the registration process again.
I have a doctor: he does not.
Interestingly poetic; and the meal was excellent.
Trying to register with a doctor has exhausted my patience and my Spanish.
I will not bore you with the details of why it should be so difficult for a British citizen to register with a Spanish doctor; I will merely recount the efforts that I have made to achieve recognition by the medical authorities.
The last time that I tried to register it all ended in metaphorical tears with Toni in a towering rage, as angry as I have ever seen him, and with me flouncing out of the medical centre in stratospheric, incandescent dudgeon. The final straw was being told by some androgynous unqualified pipsqueak lording it behind the reception desk that it would be quite impossible for them to photocopy my passport (a photocopy of which they had demanded) because, “we are not a photocopy shop.”
After laying my hands reverently on a copy of the more impenetrable writings of Lao Tzu I felt at one with the universe and calm enough to attempt ‘The Medical Centre – The Return!’
After explaining my position and asking to be registered events followed a tediously familiar pattern. This institution’s answer to everything is, “You need to go to Gava.” Gava (the town next to Castelldefels) is where the Social Security Centre resides.
Having done this previously, I laughed and joked with the ‘expert’ who had been rolled out to deal with my request and resigned myself to another futile journey, but at least it would get the medical ball rolling again.
The traffic jam on the motorway stretched from just a few hundred yards along the journey to the outskirts of Gava itself. Unfortunately I had left my volume of Lao Tzu in the flat so I was not able to avail myself of the calming wisdom of the Oriental sage. Instead I contented myself with fuming in the stationary traffic and then after a snail’s pace progression wild vituperation at the inconsiderate drivers who refused to let me get to the turn off.
I was being guided by my electronic navigator which unfortunately had not been informed of the random street closures that turned the streets of Gava into a labyrinthine mess.
By more luck than judgement and with little help from the increasingly hysterical navigator I eventually found a car park and trekked to the social security office. After a long wait I was seen and informed that I shouldn’t have come to Gava.
What I needed to do was go back to the Medical Centre and ask to see the requisite person (the one who sent me to Gava in the first place) and get it sorted.
Back at the medical centre the ‘expert’ was not convinced and actually phoned Gava for clarification. The upshot of this was, that, as I was in the middle of deploying a blizzard of papers ranging from my baptism certificate (which includes my middle name, which my birth certificate does not – a long story, some other time perhaps) to my blood group card, the ‘expert’ told me that I would have to return to Gava. There I would merely need to flash my passport, NIE and padron and everything would be fine.
After the return to Gava avoiding the motorway and ignoring the electronic navigator and after a further long wait, I was told (I think you’ve probably guessed this, haven’t you?) that I needn’t have returned to Gava and I should go back to the Medical Centre and tell them to register me in a particular way. The officials in Gava, who are genuinely helpful, were concerned at my pointless journeying and referred to me as ‘pobre hombre.’ This time the woman who was seeing to me actually wrote something on the back of a piece of paper to tell the [expletive deleted] staff of the medical centre what they should do. Rather touchingly she added an official stamp to her scrawl to give it added gravitas.
Returning to the medical centre I handed over the scrap of paper now adorned with the inky smudge of authority and waited for my registration. The demand for papers was easily met and everything appeared to be going well until I was triumphantly informed by a stony faced receptionist that the padron was out of date. The dreaded word ‘manaña’ was then used – the kiss of death to any possibility of bureaucratic completion.
I, however, was filled with the light of possibilities and determined that I would not be stymied and I headed the car towards the station car park to make an assault on the town hall to get a new padron. No spaces were available in the car park and you have to see the car park to know what that means. All reasonable spaces had been taken together with spaces that didn’t really exist in this universe; spaces so unbelievable that you had to have great faith to squeeze the car through them.
At that point I almost gave up and went home, but a wrong turning took me into town and a car leaving (eventually) a space which was too good to resist.
As usual the people in the town hall were kindliness itself and, in spite of the long wait to be seen, I soon had a new padron in my clutches.
I returned, yet again, to my now customary parking space near the medical centre and made my final attempt to be registered with a doctor.
It was, needless to say, a failure. The people I needed to see were not to be seen and, in spite of waiting (!) I eventually saw a person who told me definitively that I would have to come back later.
I did and, with Toni’s incredulous help, I did, eventually manage to get myself registered with a doctor. The disturbing thing is that my registration was eventually decided by exasperated diktat rather than by the meticulous following of rules.
I have a doctor on a whim rather than by right.
We went out for a meal to celebrate.
Incidentally, Toni, who with his identity card was assured that his medical card would be a formality and be with him within a month, is bereft! Computer failure has ensured that his card is now a mass of wandering pixels and he will have to go through the registration process again.
I have a doctor: he does not.
Interestingly poetic; and the meal was excellent.
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