Life in Spain is amazing. There are many people who want to spend peaceful life after retirement, and Spain is an ideal land for this purpose. However, before moving to Spain, one has to do little homework about emergency services in Spain. No matter how health you are or what age you are, anything can happen any moment and you have to prepare yourself for it. For this, you need to know about emergency services in Spain including police, health care, fire department, etc.
Emergency Services in England:
In England, calling an emergency is a piece of cake. All you need to do is to pick your phone and dial 999, explain your problem in simple English and job is well done. However, this is not the case in Spain. You need to know exact numbers for the respective emergency service, plus you need to know little Spanish to explain your situation to the other end. In this article, you can find solutions to this problems.
Problem Faced by Brits in Spain
The most important thing about emergency services in Spain is that you should not expect the receiver of your call to speak and understand English. Brits do face some problems when it comes to learning foreign language. Mainly because, our language English is so widely spoken and easily understood that we expect everyone to know it. However, natives of Spain usually do not know English. To explain this in simple words, if an Italian speaker will visit England, he will face language Barrier in our country.
How to overcome these Problems:
However, there is no need to panic if speaker on the phone is not able to understand English. Stay cool and calm, try to speak slowly and as clearly as possible. Few words like doctor and hospital are same in Spanish, so you’re clearly delivery of words may help the operator in understanding your need. Eventually, you will be able to make other person understand whatever you are saying. However, the thing that you must do before leaving England is to learn small phrases of Spain like I need Doctor, Police, or fire brigade. Another thing to do is to run to your neighbor who can understand both language and ask him to help you.
Emergency Contact Numbers in Spain:
Further in this article, I will mention contact numbers of some important emergency services. Take out your diary and note them. Best thing to do is to save them in your cell phone if you are planning to stay for some years.
Ambulance, Police, Fire Services: Call 112 if you need any of these services. No area code is needed for this just pick your phone and dial this number from anywhere in Spain.
Robbery or Break in: To directly report robbery dial 902-102-112. No area code is needed.
Police Department for inquiry: If you want information from national police dial 091. To contact local police station directly dial 092.
Law Department: If you need any help from The British Consul dial 91 524 97 00. For civil guard dial 062.