At The Blood Test Centre

The public health service in Mallorca and the Balearics is in crisis. It had in fact been in crisis before anyone had thought of crisis some four years ago. For years, it has leaked money like a patient in ICU leaks blood when the needle and catheter fall out. It has gone all over the place.

Something had to give. I am with those who believe that health and education should be sacrosanct when it comes to provision by the state, but this provision, in total totality, exists only in an ideal world. And the world is currently far from ideal, especially in Mallorca and even more especially in its health service.

Protests as to hospital closures are as understandable as they are predictable, as it was also predictable that the government would effect some sort of health-service rationalisation. The disappearance of around 300 hospital beds during the peak summer months was less predictable. But the headline of the temporary loss of these beds at Son Espases and at other hospitals obscures a not unreasonable decision to delay non-urgent operations and so save some money.

The dire financial situation in which the islands' health service finds itself has been known about for years. Known about but given very little attention, until economic crisis kicked in and revealed just how much debt it had been stacking up. By the end of 2011, this debt had reached 550 million euros.

The hospital closures, together with adjustments to personnel numbers and working and opening hours within the health service, suggest a health service that is truly in crisis. Yet if this crisis really exists, no one has told the local facility in Muro town.

The new PAC centre was opened last year (and note that it was opened last year, well into the period of "crisis" therefore). A two-storey building of functional modernity, its service, based admittedly on very little personal use, cannot be faulted.

I had reason a week ago to make an appointment with my GP. The appointment was made for the day after I had rung up to make it. There was no delay in seeing him on the day; indeed I got in before the appointed time. A blood test was arranged and this was for yesterday.

A previous occasion on which I had needed a blood test involved going to the private hospital in Muro. I am beginning to wonder why I continue to bother with the private health scheme, and had every reason to wonder then. The delay and sheer chaos were not what you might hope for when voluntarily handing over a goodly sum of money to a private health insurer. I understand things have got better, but the chaos was more what one might expect of a public health unit.

The visit to the blood test centre was as painless as it could possibly have been, notwithstanding the slight pain of the needle. The PAC building's modernity is incongruous in a rural Mallorcan backwater such as Muro town, and this modernity cannot disguise the fact that, as with most things in the rural communities, the centre doubles as a social club. The only real problem with the centre is being able to hear your name called over the hubbub as one old farmer shouts at another old farmer on the other side of the waiting area; the justified ancients of Muro can make a hell of a racket, one accentuated in a confined space.

The appointment was bang on time. A production line of three nurses (not the one nurse that the private hospital had) ensured that it all went with a bang. Needle in, needle out, bit of cotton wool and on your way.

Driving back from the centre, I had to concede that the introduction of the health petrol tax at the beginning of the month might in fact be worth it. At 4.8 cents per litre, and given a journey there and back of roughly 25 kilometres, the health service had probably earned at least these 4.8 cents, thanks to my visit to the blood test centre. This may overlook what is already chucked into the social security pot, to say nothing of the other cost of a litre, but for sheer efficiency, 4.8 cents represented pretty good value for money. 

How much these 4.8 cents that everyone pays (bar of course all those who are exempt) will eat into the 550 million euros debt, who knows. How much these cents will contribute to maintaining a generally fine standard of public health is another unknown. But if crisis there is in Mallorca's health service, it certainly hasn't reached Muro.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.