El Medico: finding a doctor in Andalusia
El Corazon - The Heart
Hopefully, of course, you’ll be in good health for the rest of your life and never need to find yourself a medico in la Alpujarra. On the other hand, if you’re going to live here for a while, you just might.
In a real emergency, call 112, the European emergency number. Don’t expect them to speak anything other than Spanish, so speak slowly or try to get someone who speaks Spanish to make the call.
Useful sentences:
I’m ill: estoy enfermo/a
el corazon – My heart
More useful telephone numbers here and more useful medical sentences here.
Finding a doctor wasn’t straightforward. Google rendered no results, and people in bars or on the street didn’t know. A nice man in a bookshop had heard of a German doctor in Motril named Axel, but didn’t know the specifics.
Finally we checked out the emergency room in Pitres (next to the church, there’s a blue cross on the building). And low and behold, there was a doctor! Apparently, the doctor is in most days from 9 til 14.00. If you get there on time, you can get a ticket with a number and that’s your number in the queue, because there always is a queue.
Pretty solid system, because you can go and do your shopping, have a coffee, sit out in the sun, and every now and again check whether your number’s up yet. We were too late for the numbers, so we simply had to wait our turn. Kindly locals told us that we were behind a senora in a beige jumper, so we kept a steady eye on her, because they also told us to stay alert, as most locals try to cut in front of polite/clueless foreigners.
As most things in Spain, waiting for the doctor takes its sweet time. We were there for about an hour and a half, just waiting. When we were up though, the doctor took his time with us as well and luckily spoke quite good English. And, typically Spanish, had never even heard of the word ’stress’! Aaah, the quiet life….
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