It is strange how one never thinks about vital services such as the fire brigade, an ambulance, an emergency doctor or the Guardia Civil, until there is an emergency. Luckily, I did not suffer any such calamity myself but, someone else did yesterday right where I had my afternoon coffee. One of the local elderly lads suffered a serious health attack of some kind and emergency medical services had to be called to his rescue. An ambulance arrived amazingly swiftly together with a paramedic-type doctor. Fortunately, there seemed to be no immediate life-threatening cause for concern. But eventually, the victim was taken away to the hospital in Manacor for further observations. Let’s wish him a speedy recovery.

For as long as I have lived on this island, I have always had the impression that the medical services here in Mallorca were up to scratch. Each larger pueblo has their own sanitary health centre and there are a sufficient number of public hospitals in all the larger places, such as Manacor, Inca, Muro (Alcúdia), Bunyola and so forth. All of this comes under the aegis of IB-Salud, the public health service of the Govern de les Illes Balears. All the larger tourist resorts have a number of privately run medical emergency services functioning on a 24 hours call of duty, at least during the tourist season. In addition and mainly in the Palma area, there are plenty of private hospitals catering for the large number of tourists, the thousands of ex-pats and a large portion of the better-off local community.

For medical emergency calls, there is the 061 system operating a standard telephone number anywhere in Spain for Medicina de Urgencias and Emergencias Servei d’Atenció Medica Urgent like the one needed yesterday in Felanitx. In Mallorca, this 061 emergency service has been in operation since 1992. I think they are doing a great job. Of course, one would also get any kind of emergency help under the 112 number, anywhere in Europe, including Spain and Mallorca.

The photo was taken in Felanitx, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: June 30th, 2011. The time was 18:14:16.