HEALTHCARE 'GUARANTEED'
British residents in Valencia region will not lose the right to treatment
REGIONAL president Ximo Puig confirmed this week that British residents will maintain their right to free healthcare in the Valencia region in any Brexit scenario.
Speaking at a Brexit summit in Alicante on Tuesday, Sr Puig noted that this would be done via his government’s guarantee of ‘universal healthcare’ to all citizens.
He explained that his goal is to strike a bilateral agreement with the UK government over the issue but, in the meantime, British residents would continue to receive free treatment.
“I can guarantee that they will get universal healthcare,” he stated.
Sr Puig added: “No British person is going to lose their condition of resident in respect of their basic right to healthcare.”
Sr Puig reminded that 80,000 Britons are legally registered as living in the Valencia region.
Of these, 72,000 have SIP cards which allow them to use the health service. “They are living amongst us and they have the status of Valencian people,” he stated. “Their homes are here and they can consider themselves to be Valencians.” Currently €75 million a year is sent from the UK to pay for the healthcare of British people in the Valencia region, including the 100,000 tourists who use the service.
Sr Puig added that his government is working to minimise the effects of Brexit for British residents and the 10,000 Valencian people living in the UK.
He said he will ask the UK government for reciprocal treatment for the citizens in Britain.
Sr Puig explained that his government has drawn up a Brexit action plan so they are ‘ready to confront the new scenario’.
This includes measures so that farmers’ exports are still able to reach the UK.
He lamented that exports of fruit and vegetables to the British Isles have fallen since the Referendum, when they were increasing steadily before 2016. Sr Puig said he hoped the ‘best deal’ between the British government and the EU can be reached in the coming weeks, which would see the ‘least Brexit possible’.