WHERE DO WE START?

Obviously that will depend on the problem and, to some extent, where you come from, whether you are a visitor or whether you are a resident. Fundamentally, if you are ill in Andalucía, the SAS or Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Health Service) is available to you. However, differing courses of action are appropriate to different situations. Minor illnesses such as colds and flu, tummy bugs and the like hardly merit a visit to the local hospital, so route one is probably a visit to a pharmacy; these the only places you can buy even the simplest of medicines, such as headache tablets.

Farmacias and parafarmacias are therefore the first line of defence. Firstly, a word of explanation, the parafarmacia is a relatively recent appearance on the Spanish health scene and does not really have a direct equivalent in Britain. Owned and operated by a qualified pharmacist, it does not have the right to sell medication of any sort. I won’t bore you with the political/ commercial reasons for this, but it does mean that you cannot even buy an aspirin at a parafarmacia. lf your need is for dietary items or sticking plasters, sun creams or herbal remedies, baby care or personal hygiene products, or if you want to check your weight or your blood pressure, then this is the place for you; otherwise you’ll need to find a farmacia. All farmacias display a list of duty chemists (farmacia de guardia) should you need medication outside of normal working hours.

A phrase-book conversation with the farmaceútico describing symptoms will probably result in you obtaining the necessary medication.

But, there are some words of caution. In the first place, whilst some pharmaceuticals are relatively international, many are not. Although the box of tablets, or whatever, will include a detailed description, it is most unlikely that this will be in any language other than Spanish, so do make sure that you understand both the product and the dosage. Practically speaking, the chemist is only likely to tell you the dosage if you ask him to do so, and he might just write on the packet something like 1 -1 – 1 which would mean “take one dose three times daily.” A second caution is this: if you are suffering from a recurrent condition and know which specific medication to ask for, many major ones are now available in a cheaper generic form – very similar, but not necessarily the same and possibly not as effective. Finally, pharmacists have been in the practice of selling prescription drugs over the counter to visitors. It is by no means unknown for an untrained sales assistant to do this. Obviously there is a realisation that a holidaymaker is unlikely to want to consult a doctor and the pharmacists wish to be as helpful as possible – after all, they have a professional working knowledge of pharmacology and know what the medication does, BUT THEY ARE NOT DOCTORS nor are they specifically trained in diagnostics, neither do they have the benefit of knowing your medical history. This could mean that you, with an allergy to penicillin for example, ended up buying antibiotics to which you were allergic. The doctors I teach in the hospital in Motril totally deplore the practice of buying prescription medicines without seeing a doctor, a little lacking in understanding you might say, but they back this up with stories of pharmacists who have sold somewhat inappropriate medication just because they were overstocked with it – so you’ve been warned! In case of doubt, consult a doctor, which is the subject we will be considering next month.