Showing posts with label Torrevieja. Show all posts

Torrevieja Brits are the largest group, making up 16 percent of the total number of operations being carried out

Brits are the largest group, making up 16 percent of the total number of operations being carried outForeign patients now make up 42% of the activity in the operating theatres at the District Hospital in Torrevieja. The largest group is the British, who made up 16% of the 22,640 operations carried out in the hospital in 2009. It shows the high numbers of British tourists in the area, and the number who live in the town for at least part of the year, many of them aged over 65. Britons make up 10% of the padron census in the 12 municipalities serviced by the hospital.
Next group, but with no more than 5% of the total, come the Germans, then the Norwegians and Moroccans.The numbers come amid increasing concerns in the Spanish press about the costs of providing care to ‘health tourists’, and claims that Spain is not getting all the costs of such operations reimbursed in full.
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Torrevieja Estate agents aren’t selling anything, developers are going bust, retail sales are falling by 10% to 15%, local business are struggling

According to a recent article in the Spanish press the situation in Torrevieja is deteriorating rapidly. Official unemployment has surged from 1,700 in 2005 to more than 5,000 today. Given that the construction sector employs an army of illegal immigrants, who are the first to lose their jobs, real unemployment is likely to be much higher. Estate agents aren’t selling anything, developers are going bust, retail sales are falling by 10% to 15%, local business are struggling, and taxi drivers report that trade is down by 60% to 70%. Social problems such as crime are growing, and there is litter and graffiti everywhere.What is the local mayor’s solution to the problem? More building, of course. Pedro Ángel Hernández Mateo, of the right of centre PP party, and implicated in corruption scandals, wants more town hall control over planning and building in the municipality. In his opinion, building more urbanisations is the future for Torrevieja’s economy. He has also had a good rant about anyone who has ever criticized over-development in the region, including the EU.Torrevieja, a town hall that relied heavily on building licence fees now has financial problems, as the local tax take falls by 7 million Euros thanks to the property crisis.
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Crumlin in the sun

Dublin criminals are now so frequently spotted in the Alicante city of Torrevieja where it is understood that much of the illegally sourced property investment in Spain has been directed that ordinary Dublin holidaymakers have dubbed it ‘Crumlin in the sun’.Dublin criminals moved substantial amounts of their wealth overseas, with hundreds of millions of euro of ill-gotten gains invested in the burgeoning property market in Alicante.
Spain is regarded by criminals and law enforcement agencies as the premier continental European base for organising drugs shipments via South America and eastern Europe and Asia.
Why criminals should feel freer there to conduct their illicit affairs than they do in their native countries has much to do with the perception that Spanish police are uninterested in tackling non-Spanish criminals.
Whether justified or not, Spain has a bad reputation among law enforcement agencies across Europe for failing to crack down adequately on the ease with which drug smugglers usinge the jurisdiction for doing deals.Spain’s position as a staging post for drugs from places such as Colombia and Bolivia is a symptom of its colonial past and the language ties between southern Spain and South America.
Spain’s criminal organisations also benefit from country’s massive 4,900 kilometres of coastline, from which drugs shipments can be received from South America, via Morocco or Algeria to the south, and launched to northern Europe, with little fear of detection by police or coastguard patrol boats.
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