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There is a state health system in Spain, which is available free of charge to people who have paid the required amount of social security throughout their working lives.
Anybody can go to their local health care centre “Ambulatorio” and get minor treatment, so long as they can produce a Social Security card from an EU country.
Health care centres serving large towns tend to be very big and will have a lot of staff. You can either make an appointment for one or two days ahead or you can, depending on the time you go and how many other people are waiting, take a number and sit and wait to see a doctor.
If you are a minor emergency case, you will be seen as soon as you arrive. Serious emergency cases are dealt with in the Emergency department “Urgencias” of the local hospital.
Whilst the state system is not bad, if you want to be seen quickly and have more privacy or should you need to stay in a hospital, then you need to take out a private medical insurance.
A lot of our friends have private medical insurance, whilst others prefer to save the money and spend it on a new car or whatever. My advice would be to take out medical insurance cover.
At the same time as buying the bar restaurant, we bought a front line 2 bed, beach apartment also in Estepona. The apt was absolutely wonderful, marble floors throughout and views of the Mediterranean to die for and just 100m from the beach.
Our business was located on the Eastern boundary of Estepona and the apt was on the opposite boundary, some 17 km away. The road that linked the two back in those days was a duel carriageway and was notorious for serious accidents, as it was so overcrowded. Thankfully, that’s all changed now and we have a very good dual carriageway with central barriers, plus a new motorway.
When a year or so later, Inés discovered that she was expecting our first baby, we just knew that we wouldn’t be able to travel on such a dangerous road with the new baby in the car, so we were forced to leave our dream apt and rent a place opposite the bar and restaurant, which was great because we didn’t waste time traveling back and forth to work plus, we were able to open for another couple of hours each day and profits went up to reflect that.
We had been renting out the beach apt since 1991 at a rent which was quite a bit lower than the super sized mortgage we had foolishly signed up for, so we were renting a three bed apt in a nice urbanization and also paying half of a big mortgage on a place we didn’t even live in.
Then bang! In 1994 a big economic recession hit Northern Europe and actually the rest of the world as well. This meant that suddenly there were far fewer tourists around and we were forced to endure a period lasting several years during which we had to survive on drastically reduced profits. It was a REALLY tough decision, but we decide to hand the beach apt back to the bank. In hindsight we now know that it was daft of us to take on an very big mortgage on let’s face it a luxury apatment, but we loved it whilst we were there, we experienced what most people can only ever dream of, living in a front line apt on the Mediterranean, so we have no regrets about it.
Inés had a little boy. The most beautiful baby you can ever imagine. Vincent was born in the maternity hospital in Malaga. I wasn’t allowed in to witness the birth, but a friend who is a nurse came and helped Inés through a long and painful delivery, which we were eternally grateful for as the rules of the hospital stated that only one person could accompany the mother to be.
Rather ashamedly I have to admit that I had had no really strong emotions about the baby that was growing inside Inés until, that is, when a nurse called out my name in the packed and noisy waiting room and lead me to a huge plate glass window, where on the other side another nurse held our baby boy upside down and I was able to see him through the plate glass.
At that point I fell instantly, completely in love with this wrinkled, purple looking child. I was in complete shock. I had always feared the responsibility of having a child and now here it was; I was a father!
I left the building, walked across the street and found a bar. I asked the barman for a bottle of the best beer that he had and it must have been an omen, because he put a wonderful bottle of ice-cold Becks on the table in front of me (I just adore German bottled beer). I poured it out in a rather ceremonious way, with great precision to make sure that the head was perfectly formed and as I sipped at it I contemplated the momentous and truly wonderful thing that had happened to Inés and me. We had become parents. It was the strangest emotion I have ever felt in my life, but it was also the happiest one.
