Thousands of Europeans take advantage of the Spanish Health Service for their operations

Socialist ex President of Extremadura, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, has attacked medical tourism in a radio interview, and written an article published in El País on gatecrash health tourism, where thousands of Europeans take advantage of the Spanish Health Service for their operations.He is not attacking medical tourism where people pay to go to Spain for treatment in a private clinic, but “cross border healthcare” where some holidaymakers, and foreign part or full-time expatriates are accessing free treatment in Spain.Ibarra’s argument is that health tourism is increasingly common with thousands of Europeans taking advantage of the free Spanish system for procedures which are free there but charged for in the countries of origin, describing replacement hips and knees, and heart and cataract operations the most in demand. He claims the practice has reached such dimensions that some travel agents have added the health service to the list of attractions. Ironically, the nation most blamed is the British, the irony being that only weeks ago British politicians were blaming foreigners going to Britain just for free treatment as a reason the NHS is not delivering as well as they would like.It would be easy to dismiss Ibarra as yet another politician ranting at foreigners, but he gives some data to back up his argument. He may be using old data, but anyone who has ever tried to get Spanish figures on anything will know that they are usually several years old before they reach daylight. He quotes the Malaga division of the Andalucian Health Service as saying in June 2004 that some 400,000 EU residents live in the province and get health cover and the ensuing financial black hole is enough to pay for the Malaga Metro or build 25 hospitals. He says that every EU citizen not on the census but receiving health care is costing Spain 686 euros a year.