Harris Insurance Spain

Great towel, it dries you and keeps you dry in the rain too! 😀

After Alan’s personal experience of the vaccination plan, that is gathering momentum in Andalucia now, it may help to put out a few bits of information that people in our local area may find useful.

The over 80’s have now nearly all been vaccinated apparently and they are asking anyone over 80 years old, or knows of somebody over 80 years old, who has not had a vaccination, to get in touch with local health centres. If you are in Estepona municipality, then you should call 689 31 32 76 or 609 80 98 53 and let them know and they will arrange an appointment.

As Spain is not giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65’s, they have began to vaccinate the 65 to 55 age group with it , starting with those born in 1956 and Alan went for his first one yesterday.

He says: ”I was called on our fixed line the day before to tell me that I had an appointment the next morning at La Lobilla health centre in Estepona. Arriving 5 minutes early it was a little chaotic outside, to say the least. Impossible to park in their car park, I managed to get somewhere just a minute’s walk away, so give yourself plenty of time when it’s your turn.

Although there were dozens of people outside, the actual queue at the front door was only 5 or 6 long, so I saw the nurse quickly, gave her my name and she marked it off her list and sent me round the side of the building to the back entrance. Again there was a large crowd of people milling around, but a quick chat with someone told me that most of them had been vaccinated already and were hanging around for the recommended 15 minutes afterwards.

A nurse pops her head out of the open door at the top of the steps every five minutes or so and calls a few names, so try and position yourself near the entrance up the steps and you won’t miss it that way. Once my name was called, I went straight in and sat down in a small room, one nurse was sat at a computer and the other prepared and administered the jab, which I only realised had been done when she slapped a wad of cotton wool over the site and held it with a plaster.

She asked if I had my second appointment and when I told her no, the computer came up with a date in June and that was it. I was told to wait outside for 15 minutes and if I felt OK after that to go home. Very easy and as anybody who has been to outpatients at the Costa del Sol hospital will know, although it looks like nobody knows what’s going on in a busy waiting room, the system runs like clockwork.

No ill effects, although during the night my arm ached at the vaccination site and I had a bit of a headache, but a paracetamol later I’m right as rain. Hope my experience helps you to know what to expect, even if you don’t speak any Spanish.”

Apparently there has been another delivery of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, so the timetable for vaccinating the 79 to 66 years group has been brought forward and they have now started calling in those people who were born in 1942 and 1943, as well as the 65 to 55 group.

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR THOSE WITH PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE AND NOT IN THE SPANISH SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM: It is important that to be included in the vaccination process, you must be registered in the Andalucia Public Health System database.

Some people - generally foreigners - may not be registered in the system when using private healthcare providers and have not received prior care in the Andalusian Public Health System.

In this case, it is necessary to request inclusion in the database in order to join the vaccination process against COVID-19, without this implying the right to other public health benefits.

In order to do this, you should complete the simple form below and deliver it to a health centre. If you are doing this yourself, just ignore the section “Datos de la Persona Representante Legal”.

Hope this gives a bit of an insight into what can be a confusing current situation.https://www.sspa.juntadeandalucia.es/servicioandaluzdesalud/sites/default/files/sincfiles/wsas-media-mediafile_sasdocumento/2021/ALTA_SIMPLIFICADA_BDU_PRIVADOS_EXTRANJERO.pdf