I couldn’t help but smile when I read a recent article in the Guardian entitled “Scrounging foreigners? British expats accused of health tourism in Spain.”
It seems, that if the article is accurate, an increasing number of British expats are using the Spanish health care system to by-pass the queues back home in the NHS.
For me this raises a couple of issues, since Spain is a member of the EU and therefore has reciprocal health care arrangements with the UK. However it seems that the Spanish beef might not actually be with full time British expats but instead those often referred to as “dippers” i.e. folk who spend some time each year in both countries.
“Charity workers who help Britons with health problems in Spain say there is evidence that some who live in both countries – known in expat jargon as “dippers” – cherry pick the best health services from each place. “I haven’t come across anyone who has come to Spain specifically for an operation, though,” said Pat Lee-Patten, of the Help charity in Alicante province, who rejected the idea that expats’ activities amounted to health tourism.” read more…..
Sadly for a lot of British expats living in none EU countries the chance to even use the NHS back home is now not possible. British expats-health tourism scroungers? Sounds like a storm in a tea cup to me!
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