As I take in the clean mountain air and Andalucian sunshine (35 degrees on my terrace today), the world of doom-laden recession and Swine Flu seem a million miles away. Yet when I peruse my English Facebook friends’ profile pages, some of them are suffering from, or have recently recovered from, the dreaded porky complaint. Oh what a surprise: according to reports on the Guardian.co.uk and on Twitter, the UK government hasn’t prepared sufficiently for the pandemic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/28/swine-flu-lords-criticise-government) and governments are “desperate to prevent panic” (http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23swineflu). Well, the Swine Flu threat was always likely to descend into a scenario reminiscent of Corporal Jones in ‘Dad’s Army’ running around shouting “don’t panic, don’t panic” while flapping like a loose sail in the wind. Furthermore, the UK has 100,000 cases of reported Swine Flu but these are largely self-certified: i.e. people are diagnosing their own symptoms without seeing a doctor. What a lot of convenient sick leave taken from work just before the school holidays start.
I can’t help wondering when Swine Flu will reach the Sierra Nevada environs which, let’s face it, has strong links with Britain via Granada and Malaga airports. At least we could all hide in the sierra with face masks for extra safety if the predicted, more fatal “second wave” of H1N1 hits Europe. This would be historically fitting: rebels hid there in the past - for example after the Spanish Civil War when they were opposing the Franco regime - but minus the face masks and possibly minus shoes and warm clothing as well (unimaginably awful). And individuals who are trying to ‘run away’ from something are still attracted to this area... head to the mountains! They won’t find you!
Anyway, I digress once again. The aforementioned topics are intended to bring me neatly to the subject of the local medical services, which make me want to flee up the nearest mountain because of the indifference extended towards extranjeros by some (but by no means all) of the staff. On certain occasions, the local centro de salud (equivalent of a GP practice) has been very helpful but, on others, I’ve departed with my metaphorical tail between my legs because my Spanish wasn’t good enough to – for example – arrange Archie’s baby injections without hideous confusion occurring. After being castigated by the rather scary female nurse in charge of jabs, I felt as if my family’s presence was too much trouble by far: perhaps I should just let the kids catch TB and whooping cough instead? Worse still, I recall a notable occasion on which I was sent ‘around the houses’ between the Orgiva centro de salud, Motril hospital and the Lanjaron centro de salud in the hope of receiving a Downs Syndrome test during pregnancy number two. After spending hours driving around between these various establishments and also spending mucho dinero on a translator, a blood test for Downs Syndrome finally took place in Lanjaron, two minutes away from my home. The result eventually came back: a code with numbers. As I was flying to England the same day, I phoned my midwife upon landing and read out the code. “It’s a positive pregnancy test result,” she said. This was so bad it was hilarious: endless hours lurking in medical institutions with a translator just to confirm at 16 weeks that yes, I was actually pregnant. I had a Downs Syndrome test done in Blighty soon afterwards – it was a bit late but still within the realms of scientific validity – and it was negative.
A couple of years later, it transpires that despite my best efforts to register my family with the Spanish health services, only Mummy has been registered correctly while my children show on the computer system as being out of the country. Hmmm... helpful. This came to light recently when I took my oldest boy, Oscar, into the centro de salud. He had spent much of the night screaming because his toenail was hanging off by one corner. Admittedly, this wasn’t an emergency like a broken leg but the poor little lad wouldn’t let Mummy anywhere near his toenail, meaning the nurse had to pull it off instead. The level of sympathy extended towards us was non-existent: the male nurse looked at me as if I was completely bonkers for not forcibly removing the toenail myself. I dread to think what would happen if we all came down with swine flu... perhaps the language barrier would present a problem and, whether we hired a translator or not, we’d be sent home with a handy pack of tampons instead of Tamiflu. But will Tamiflu still be effective against H1N1 by the time it reaches La Alpujarra anyway...
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