# anyone who relies on getting there medicine in spain



## dragabed (May 24, 2008)

if you get your medicine or drugs for sickness or life dependancy on your travels in spain you need to reed this and make alternative arrangements


Valencia: A Spanish city without medicine
Chemist demonstrating in Valencia
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The Spanish regions are heavily in debt. People rely on them for free health and education, but they can no longer pay their bills - and they can't expect much help from central government, as it too struggles under a huge financial burden.

You always know if an interview is going to be fun if the interviewee has a sharp, diagonal fringe.

Paula, the pharmacist, has such a fringe, and a grin that suggests she not only understands English but could crack a few jokes in it. But she chooses to speak in Spanish. Because what is happening in Valencia is no fun.

The sign on the wall tells the story. "Important information. The government of Valencia owe this pharmacy for all the medicine we have dispensed to you in January, February, March, April and May".
“Start Quote

We are down to our last packs of insulin - we just have no money to buy the stock”

Paola Pharmacist

And not just this pharmacy. The government of Valencia - which runs the health system - owes a grand total of half a billion euros to the region's pharmacies.

Paula guides me into that back room that exists in all pharmacies, where the prescription drugs are kept. The problem is, now, there are not many drugs left.

"Look, this drawer is usually full," she says, pointing to where the suppositories are kept. Now there are only two packets."

She opens the fridge. "Look," she says, "we are down to our last packs of insulin. We just have no money to buy the stock."

I ask: "What happens if several people come in on the same day for insulin?" She makes two fingers walk along the back of her wrist. "They have to go around the neighbourhood to see if anybody else has it. It is the same with drugs for heart disease, stroke, anti-retrovirals."
From Our Own Correspondent

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It is an ordinary pharmacy: clean, white, with the regulation green neon cross outside. Now quite a lot of the patients are having to do something which for them is extraordinary: they are having to pay - a bit - for their medicines. There is a sign on the door explaining the new charges.

The Spanish regions have an extraordinary problem. During the property boom which has now busted Spain, they were collecting some taxes - from, yes, property.

Now that source of revenue is gone, they are expecting the central government to provide them with the cash they need. But the central government is in trouble too: it cannot borrow - except at punitive rates.
“Start Quote

Valencia is littered with vanity projects that tell their own story”

The regions cannot borrow either. Valencia's deep in debt and who does pharmacist Paula blame? She smiles bitterly. "That is a very hard question to answer," she says


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