Gibraltar patients get good news as taxis to Spanish hospitals remain available

If you have ever had to arrange transport for a hospital appointment, you will know that getting there can sometimes be almost as stressful as the appointment itself. Now imagine being referred for specialist treatment in another country and suddenly being told that the taxi taking you there may no longer be covered. That was the concern facing Gibraltar patients referred to hospitals in Spain after a Gibraltar Health Authority notice appeared to say that taxi journeys for these appointments would no longer be paid for.

For people who depend on the service because of their medical needs, it raised an obvious question: how are they supposed to get to hospital? There is now an answer. Gibraltar’s Health Minister, Gemma Arias-Vasquez, has confirmed that taxis will remain available for patients who need them, putting an end to fears that transport for medical referrals to Spain was being withdrawn.

Gibraltar patients can still get taxis to Spain

The clarification followed a notice from the Gibraltar Health Authority stating that taxis for tertiary appointments in Spain would no longer be paid for, with no petrol allowance available either. The wording caused concern among patients covered by Gibraltar’s Sponsored Patients system, particularly those who have to travel to Spain because the specialist treatment they require is not available in Gibraltar.

However, Arias-Vasquez said the notice had not been properly communicated to her ministry and did not accurately reflect the government’s position. Patients who genuinely require a taxi to attend their referral appointment will continue to have access to one. The change is instead intended to address situations where patients do not actually require a taxi for their journey. In other words, the transport provision is not being scrapped, but taxis will not necessarily be provided automatically to every patient travelling for treatment.

Why patients are sent to hospitals in Spain

Gibraltar has a small healthcare system and does not provide every type of specialist treatment locally. Patients can therefore be referred to medical centres outside the territory when the required care is unavailable through the Gibraltar Health Authority. The GHA’s Sponsored Patients Department manages these arrangements for patients requiring specialist treatment that cannot be provided in Gibraltar. Referrals are considered through the Tertiary Referral Board before treatment is authorised.

For some of those patients, hospitals in Spain are the most practical option because of their proximity. The arrangements can involve treatment in Spanish hospitals while the patient’s care remains funded and managed through Gibraltar’s healthcare system. That makes transport an important part of the arrangement, particularly for anyone whose medical condition means they cannot reasonably make the journey independently.

Confusion over the taxi notice

The original notice appears to have created the impression that patients would have to arrange and pay for their own journeys to Spain, regardless of their circumstances. That is not the position now being given by the Gibraltar Government. The Health Minister has made clear that anyone who needs transport to attend a specialist referral in Spain should not be left without it. The aim is to ensure that taxis are available where they are genuinely required, rather than treating every referral as automatically requiring one.

The clarification is particularly important for patients who may already be dealing with serious or long-term health problems. A journey across the border can involve additional planning, and removing an established transport arrangement could have created another practical obstacle between a patient and the treatment they had been referred to receive.

For now, those fears have been put to rest. Gibraltar is not ending its taxi provision for patients referred to hospitals in Spain, although the circumstances in which a taxi is provided are being tightened so that the service is used when it is actually needed. The GHA is expected to provide clearer information to patients about the arrangements, following the confusion caused by the original notice.