Health

La Mútua

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

I have joined the private health system.
If you are a regular here you might remember that about a year ago I hurt my hand in the van door. I won’t make you revisit the details of what happened in the underground car park – I still can’t bear to think of it.
It was agony for a few weeks and then gradually healed up but there was always a strange sensation around the wound and even when it stopped hurting I wouldn’t say it was back to normal.
Then about 8 months ago a lump appeared over the finger joint and this has got bigger and more painful as time went on.

Ok, that’s the background and I only tell you the details as an introduction to my experience of health care here in Catalunya.

According to leaflets found in the health centres, every person resident here is entitled to a health card which provides free services at doctors and hospitals and reduced price drugs.

However….although I have been here three years and am empadronated in Granollers (it’s a list of people who officially live in an area) and come from an EU country,  I have never been able to get a health card, the Tarjeta Sanitaria or CAP card.

Everyone in my Catalan class – from Africa, from Morocco, from other parts of Spain – have CAP cards.  My friends from Germany and Australia have CAP cards. But I can’t get one.
Different officials give different reasons for this but in the end it comes down to the fact that I am from the UK.  If I get a form from the National Insurance in Newcastle saying that I receive no benefits from the social security system then I can apply for a card. But this would mean that I had opted out of the Health Service in the UK and as I return home every year and always go to visit my doctor there, and up to recently was being monitored for kidney stones, I don’t want to opt out. I want to go here when I am in Catalunya and there when I am in the UK. I can’t really see the problem.

This is why I didn’t do anything when I damaged my hand last year. I waited for it to get better.  Which it did. Then it got worse again and I found myself here without a doctor to turn to.

We went to the Urgency doctor in the local surgery. After waiting for almost an hour in a very dirty waiting room I saw a doctor who took a quick look and pronounced that I had a lump on my finger and that she couldn’t send me to a specialist as I was only receiving urgent treatment.

I then looked into private health care. Most of the arrangements cost about 200 euros per month.
A friend of a friend very kindly took a look at the finger and thought it might be infected and needed looking at by a doctor.
Finally someone pointed me in the direction of La Mútua – which as its name suggests offers various levels of membership of a mutual organisation providing health care.  Anyone here with a bit of money seems to be a member.     I used to be surprised when friends said casually they were off to see a gynaecologist but now I understand how easy it is here.  For 30 euros a month I can go and see a specialist almost immediately.  I pay each time for a visit or a treatment but it is at a much reduced rate.  The other option was to pay more each month, be a full member and have everything included.

The building of the Mútua towers over a central square in Granollers and inside there is an impressive list of specialities. I was shocked to see how many I could imagine using – ginecologia, urologia, pneumologia, even perhaps in the near future, geriatria!

Today was my first visit. I saw Dr Toro who I chose for his name.   He works in traumatologia and he speaks English. He sent me off to book in for an x-ray and an ultrasound. Because of Easter I can’t go next week but the week after I should be several steps closer to sorting out my lump!

This is not an advertisement for the Mútua – I’ll let you know how it goes and what I think of it after I’ve had the treatment. But it is interesting that here so many people are in private health schemes and accept it as completely normal.

Water Does Not Resist

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day. We left Granollers and the industrial zone of Valles Oriental behind us and headed north to Sant Hilary Sacalm

Sant Hilary Sacalm is known as the town with a hundred fountains. Two generations ago it was visited annually by hundreds of Catalans who came to taste the natural spring waters. There were hotels and restaurants and a busy Casino in the town centre. People came for two or three months in the summer with their whole families. Every year they would stay in the same hotel, walk the familiar pathes which lead to the different fountains, drink the various waters which were known to heal different parts of the body. They would meet the same friends every year and the annual ritual seemed as if it would never change

But now the town is quiet. Many of the hotels have closed down – one has even been knocked down to create a new plaça with a covered market. The Casino and the cinema have disappeared. Habits change and people stopped making this regular pilgrimage to drink the waters

But the fountains are still there

We visited the Font Ferro which heals the eyes

And the Font de Cirers which has the sweetest waters

And the Font del Pic which was not so popular

Font Vella is now the centre of a vast bottled water industry – presently owned by Danone!

That one was surrounded by signs saying ‘No Dogs’. Funny how big businesses go daft!

A lovely town with fresh clear air. I slept all the way home – drugged by cleanliness


“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” 

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

Things to Worry about Walking your Dog

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment
  • Is it too hot to go out for a walk?
  • How much shade can we find on the way to the park?
  • Is the water in the pond/stream/puddle dirty?
  • Now that it’s cool enough to go out, won’t there be increased danger of sandflies?
  • Will there be petardos on the street as we pass?

Today was very hot and as I didn’t get up till 11am the sun was too strong for the first walk to be comfortable.
There was shade but even just crossing the open spaces in the park made Bonnie pant.
Many of the water fountains aren’t working – a money saving decision perhaps? So it is tempting to use the ponds but who knows what that water is like. The Congost is definitely polluted from the factories so I try to keep Bonnie out of there.
It got cooler around 8pm. Sunrise and sunset are supposed to be the worse time for sandflies. These are little biting insects which can carry the dreaded leichmaniosis.
Duna wears a Scalibor collar, Bonnie is part protected by Advantix and neither of them have had the vaccine because every time I read about it I see so many concerns about side-effects. The decision is still in the balance.
It is Saturday night and as the celebration of Sant Joan approaches  there are more and more petardos going off in the streets. These are sort of bangers – some large and some small. It is best to avoid small groups of young boys at this time of year. At times this evening it felt like a war zone with gunshots all around – but they are only fireworks and Bonnie actually ignored them most of the time.
We survived the walk.
There were swallows and swifts and bats all flying around together as we turned for home.
The frogs were croaking loudly by the river and the banger boys had gone home to prepare for a night out.

A lovely day

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Lovely day.
Spent the morning at Granollers market. Took the dogs to Premia de Mar beach and then had lunch on the terrace in the sunshine.  Drove home over the hills behind Mataro and took a little detour to see the abandoned and derelict masia which I fantasize about doing up. Then a relaxed evening chatting with my friend on the sofa while watching BBC television drama with Juliet Stevenson.

I’ve done lots of research about balnearis in Catalunya and still haven’t decided which one to go to tomorrow. I found this site with a long list of possible ones and now am dreaming of taking a mineral bath every week while researching my book on The Mineral Spas of Catalunya.

Will let you know where we finally go!

Going to the dentist in Granollers

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

I finally got round to going to the dentist here. Funny how you put these things off when it all feels unfamiliar. But a crack in a crown forced me to phone up and I didn’t allow myself to speak English, only asking the receptionist to please speak slowly.  Unusually she responded in beautiful clear and slow Catalan.  This is not my normal experience as for some reason most people ignore my request for slow and only speak louder and, perhaps nervously, faster.
I had two appointments so was able to take full advantage of the incredible views over the Porxada

There were lovely bird drawing in the waiting room, done by the dentist himself, Snr Costa

These relaxed me before going ahead with the filling. Yes, a new filling as it turned out the crack was not a problem but the cavity next door needed seeing to.  They took out an ancient amalgam filling and replaced with the more healthy white kind.

It’s embarrassing seeing a dentist here – I feel I have to apologise for a ‘British’ mouth.  Apparently we are famous for having been subject to drill and fill, especially in the 1960’s which is when I used to go and see an enthusiastic but not highly skilled Mr Terrace.  I remember the sound of the drill, the flecks of dandruff on the top of his head which I focused on to distract myself from the pain. I’m not sure there were injections in those days, can that be true?
Sitting in the dentist chair must be one of the most intense and private experiences we have in public. You can’t speak, your mouth is open at the least attractive angle, a strong light is focussed on your face and there is no escape.  You are forced back inside yourself to seek comfort in whatever way you can.  I usually try to levitate to another astral plane.
But today I needed to keep some attention in the room.  He was speaking to me.

Surely this needs no translation?
Obri, una mica més. Ara tanqui…tanqui…..TANQUI……gràcies…..ara obri….més…més…més….molt bé.