Spain is different

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The External Health building in Cartagena looks disused. I first went there a couple of weeks ago. I pressed the bell but I was so sure that the building was abandoned that I had started to walk away before someone answered the door. They took details and made me an appointment for today.

Today in the same building a toothless chap wearing jeans and a faded polo shirt asked me what I wanted. He didn't look like medical staff - no white coat, the unmistakable badge of anyone doing any job in the health service. He must have been the caretaker because he knew what I had to do. First the registration on a lob sided, thousand time copied form and then a short wait for the doctor.

Usual advice - avoid the water, drink whisky without ice, don't eat veg. Big change to my lifestyle there then. Covering myself in DEET and taking anti typhoid and malaria tabs will be novel though. To get the tablets I need to go to another doctor for a scrip. Usual Spanish system. Why do things there and then when you can send someone to a second queue, why use one doctor when two will do?

"Oh, by the way," she said, "You probably won't be able to find the anti typhoid drug I've suggested  - they're in short supply. Try a lot of pharmacies and then," pointing to a piece of paper,  "buy this alternative non prescription drug." I laughed.

"Yes, Spain is different," she sniggered, echoing the old Francoist advertising slogan.

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