Make sure you get your EHIC if travelling abroad this summer
I had a fortunate health experience recently. I travelled for a 4-day break to celebrate my Silver Wedding Anniversary to Spain which was interrupted by a heart attack.
From the hotel room floor to operating theatre and then the ICU unit within a couple of hours with a little hole in my wrist and 3 stents inserted.
The next day, back to theatre to check the emergency work, the Spanish doctor said there was an issue with another artery so “whilst you are here, we may as well fix that”.
An extraordinary ‘service’ paid for thanks to the European Health Insurance Certificate. What followed wasn’t as active nor seamless.
As I said, I was fortunate. Fortunate that this happened in Spain as every medical professional I speak to here at home tells me!
The Spanish health system just gets stuff done at the primary care level, but your aftercare, recuperation is in their view none of their business.
We all (should) travel with insurance to cover unexpected emergencies. Sadly, my insurer let me down when needed.
Filling in forms on a phone and booking hotels whilst still plugged to the hospital ICU ward wall was the start of it followed by more than three weeks of fighting for the support I paid for. It included sorting my own cardiologist reviews and bills, hotels and eventually travel home. Then 11 weeks fighting to get every penny I was owed reimbursed.
Unlike the Spanish, the UK systems rely on process which gets in the way of performance.
If you have the fortune of being able to travel for a holiday this summer, do a few things.
Make sure you get your EHIC and carry that card and copy of your insurance with you. Buy the best travel insurance you can afford and be sure to declare any pre-conditions. Don’t take the risk, thinking it’ll save you a couple of quid, of excluding them.
If something goes wrong, keep all communications and receipts, relentlessly pursue what you’re owed and hold your insurers to the standards and the service they sell!
- Stephen Kelly.