Spain v Britain - the good, the blood and the ugly

IN the six years since I bought my home in Spain, my spectacles have become a shade pinker.
   I love the country, I love the people, I love the lifestyle - and of course I l adore the weather. OK, I’m not so keen on the Gota Fria but that doesn’t stop me being an unashamed Spanofile.
Having said that, Spain is far from perfect. In fact, there are things I loathe about this country.
The lunatic drivers and useless administrators, shop ­assistants who chat on the phone when customers need service, electricity companies that have no qualms about leaving old ladies in the dark if a payment is delayed.
And of course, the mañana, mañana mentality in just about every aspect of life. I could go on and on.

When it comes to organisation and administration, Spain is a Third World entity. However much we expats rip into the old country (and there’s plenty to rip into), when it comes to recording information, British bureaucracy takes some ­beating.
The UK system has been tried and trusted over generations and one simple phone call is invariably all it takes to iron out the glitch.
In Spain, if you ring your electricity, gas and water ­suppliers with a query, they’ll either be unable to find you on the company database, have your name, address or phone number wrong (often all three) wrong - or say they will call you back. Which they won’t.
This is, of course, a totally subjective opinion, since our individual experiences differ. This applies to hospital stays, too.
The reaction of readers to last week’s article on my recent stay in Torrevieja Hospital suggests that most expats regard the Spanish health service as superior to the NHS.
Yet the same article posted on one of my blog sites – and read more by people in Britain - prompted exactly the opposite response.
Which left me in a state of limbo over my own treatment because, whilst I adored the hospital itself, there were a couple of worrying elements of my six days in dock.
l The ‘mañana mañana’ mentality of the nurses when I pressed the call button. On one occasion I waited ten minutes for someone to come after telling them over the speaker that I needed assistance.
lThe near-sadistic behaviour of one impatient young male nurse when he couldn’t find a usable vein in either of my arms to insert a canula.
l In contrast with my after-care at Rochdale, where I had two coronary stents inserted in 2009, no proper advice on what to do and not to do in the immediate future.
The male nurse with an attitude came to the ‘rescue’ after a canula worked its way out of the back of my right hand, causing blood to drip all over the floor.
He wasn’t happy from the start and things got worse when he couldn’t find a usable vein in either arm in which to insert a new probe. I closed my eyes and froze as he pummelled away at my skin, trying to tempt even a mini-vein out of hiding.
At one point, he thought he found one, only to lose it. ‘’Stop moving!’’ he yelled in frustration, even though I hadn’t budged a millimeter. Problem was that my veins had become so incensed at being treated like a pin cushion that they’d gone into hiding. And this hot-blooded horror was bent on needling them into surrender.
He eventually found a way into my right arm just above elbow level. It felt distinctly uncomfortable. I suspected something was not quite right but his mood alone sealed my lips.
Within a couple of hours, my right bicep was almost solid. The canula had to go – and this time an angel of a nurse descended and soothingly found an entry point in the back of my left hand.
She was typical of the nursing staff of both sexes…sweet and caring. But while it was an isolated incident, he of the black mood left a dark cloud over my overall experience.
My discharge from hospital was also rather strange. Unlike in Rochdale, where I had my first angioplasty, there was no advice not to drive for a few days, and no little card for my handbag, detailing my condition and medication in case of emergency. And no proper details on recuperation procedure.
I can only assume this was because I had been through the same stenting process before – and know the drill like the back of my hand - what’s left of it after Mr Nasty’s needle session.
Well, I do know what I should do.
Basically, it’s a case of eating the right food, getting some exercise and taking things easier. Unfortunately I suffer from an incurable infection called workaholism, which undoubtedly contributed to the events that put me in hospital.
I’m now under strict orders to ease back – with an unwinnable battle ahead if I don’t take my foot off the gas.
And it’s not the angina that I fear most.
It’s my colleagues at The Courier.

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) November 25, 2011 

Why does the kit always hit the fan?

I popped into a major sports shop in Torrevieja last week, hoping to buy a couple of football kits for my grandsons for Christmas.
They are both crazed Manchester United fans - and actually live in the city, believe it or not. But they also enjoy the trappings of success. That’s why they are just as happy to run around in Barcelona or Real Madrid kit.

Now I know that Spain are world champions, but I was reckoning on paying no more than €40 for a replica of the new jersey they (or 'we' by adoption) wore against England recently.
Don’t you believe it! The CHEAPEST shirt on display was €59.95…with the World Cup winners’ jersey marked up at a cool €72.95.
For some reason, the adult version of the same kit was €3 cheaper. Curious.
There’s no mystery, or course, as to why cash-strapped mums and dads are subjected to paying extortionist prices to keep their kids happy at Christmas. It’s the ridiculous wages paid to professional footballers…when pure logic tells us their income should be capped.
Top stars reportedly earn at least £100,000 A WEEK – a disgusting figure that 95% of us could not make in two or three years.
If the players’ unions had any compassion, they’d force the likes of Iniesta, Rooney and Messi to fork out a measly £1,000 each weekend to repay the folk without whose hard-earned wages they’d be a lot poorer.
The only consolation for English folk is that their heroes made up at Wembley for the fact that Spain won the World Cup in South Africa last year.
Maybe manager Fabio Capello, whose English is far from perfect, got his instructions mixed up and told his players: ‘‘If you can’t join them, beat them.’’

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) November 25, 2011

My close shave - 6am razor attack in a Spanish hospital to die for

I was asleep when a chink of light  in the doorway alerted me. A man had entered Room 114.

A 6am intruder! The last thing I wanted on top of the angina attack that had put me in Torrevieja Hospital for four days and counting. Particularly with only a flimsy regulation-blue hospital gown for protection.
As I lay on the bed, squinting blearily into the darkness, the glint of metal told me the shadowy silhouette was on a business call.
He sat down on the bed - and  I realised he was brandishing two razors in his right hand.
My worst fears were confirmed. I was about to be shaved of my last vestige of dignity…by, of all people, the camp male nurse I had silently dubbed Dapper Diego.
I hadn’t the heart to protest as DD lifted my gown and, humming quietly, went to work. Donna’s pube train was at the sharp end of a potential disaster - and my only thought was that Diego might not mind the gap.
Five minutes later, the plucked chicken with the dicky ticker was ready for her heart-to-heart with the stentist later in the day.
More than 12 hours later as it happens. But of course, Torrevieja Hospital, like just about everyone in Spain, does everything manana.
Anyway, I eventually ended up at the mercy of  the guy whose job is to ping balloons into clogged up coronary channels. It sounds like a children’s party – and it might as well have been from the way the medical team laughed and joked their way through the entire procedure.
There was I, lying there with a catheter invading half my body via a gaping hole in  my femoral artery, and they were all cackling away in Spanish like kids playing doctors with a doll.
I certainly didn’t find it funny…though their trivialisation of it all did admittedly ease my own fears that my life was in danger.
Stentist? It was more like a dentist working upside down after administering laughing gas to himself and his staff.
That all happened last Wednesday – nine days ago. And you’ve only heard a fraction of the story.

The previous Saturday, my house guest Mike had to perform the old 112 and call the emergency services when I suffered an angina attack. Minutes later, I was in the back of an ambulance roaring down the N332 at 140kph with Vettel Mickey screeching behind in his rented Ford Ka.
I was about to receive proof – if any was needed – that the Spanish health service leaves the NHS standing. Even if it does seem to work at half the speed.
Torrevieja Hospital is a magnificent building with magnificent facilities …a credit to Spanish medicine in the 21st century.
That was evident from the moment I set foot – or rather wheels – on the premises.
I was whisked through the emergency admission process in a matter of minutes…with a slight hiccup when doctors discovered the handful of different medications Mike had grabbed from my bedroom drawer weren’t mine!
Assessed and then herded into a 32-bed observation ward, I shared the following eight hours with an array of characters of various nationalities in various states of discomfort.
Only an obligatory bland, salt-free apology for lunch eased the boredom. Plus the hope that I would be discharged later that day.
I suspect that is what the doctors intended because I was the only patient in the ward not to receive an evening meal.
Mind you, that changed big-time when the nurses got word of the poor starving waif in bed C-21.
They hunted around and unwittingly brought me a magnificent fully-flavoured meal that had clearly been intended for a non-coronary patient. Salt of the earth, those nurses!
For the next five days, home was a comfortable, modern en suite room of my own. And for me, Torrevieja is right up there with any British private hospital - with the exception, of course, that you don’t pay five-star hotel prices.
You get a much better view, too. Tourists would pay good money for the glorious panorama from Room 114 across the salt lake. Picture postcard stuff, particularly at night when the glow of lights on the far shore flickered on the water.
And in Dr Piotr Chochowski, I had the most caring of cardiologists. I’ve lots more to say  - but the main thing this week is that I’m not yet ready to cash in on my Golden Leaves funeral plan.
And since the whole episode did not cost me a cent, I still have considerably more money than stents.


Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) 18-11-2011