Question:
We will arrive in Palma de Mallorca in late March and start perusing the
Mediterranean coast(s) of Spain before heading back towards the UK via the
French canals... What are your experiences with obtaining ordinary health
and dental services?
Answer:
You don't mention it, so in case you don't have one, you should get a
form E111 completed and carry this with you at all times when in any EU
country. Ths is a once-only operation - I just keep mine with the
passport and my other sailing stuff.
The form is available (from memory) from the local DHSS office.
The form entitles you to health care in a given country on the same
basis as the locals (though I'm sure there are some restrictions). So,
for example, in France, you may have to pay for care but will be able to
get 70% of it back from the appropriate UK agency (DHSS or whatever it's
called this week?). This is based on my conversations with French
nationals.
Having said that, when I escorted one of our crew to the docs in France
the year before last for something, I am told the doc was very helpful
and didn't charge him a bean.
I have heard some Spanish nationals say that there are different `health
services' in different parts of Spain, so that may bear checking out.
The Health service publish a leaflet for foreign visitors to this country:
http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/tracs/patguide.pdf
Not much use, I agree, but I bet they publish a leaflet for Brits abroad
too and there is a contact address on the bottom of this leaflet. I
think the DHSS also publish a similar leaflet for travellers in both the
EU and in non-EU countries.
I would guess that optical and dental services may not be covered by
these reciprocal arrangements - I know they aren't in this country
because I had to do a lot of research on this for the benefit of
visiting foreign students a couple of years ago.
Now, here's the bind... We are US, not UK... We have US health and dental
insurance and were military once upon a time not so recently. But now we're
retired military so the SOFA presumably don't apply...
My experience in the UK and Italy with health facilities, supported by one
of the anecdotes you provided, is that once you're in the door, the medical
staff really are just dedicated to making you feel better, and really don't
care about the bureaucratic paper work...
I've programmed myself and my computer to change all my "z" to "s" and to
generally use proper English. Any comments on the experiences of Yanks in
these circumstances?
