The IB-Salut public health service in the Balearics is to establish a public allergology service. Long demanded by the Spanish Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (SEIAC), there is currently only one specialist in the public health service for the entire population - around 1,200,000. The optimum, according to the World Health Organization, is one for every 50,000 people, meaning that ideally there should be 24 specialists.
The SEIAC, through its delegation in the Balearics, has been pressing for this service for the past ten years. Following meetings with Eugenia Carandell, the director of health care at IB-Salut, and Carmen Sanclemente, the medical director at Son Espases Hospital, there is agreement for its creation. Dr. Antonio Valero, president of the SEIAC, says that Son Espases will be the right place for the service. "The next step will be the specifications. Depending on budget, we have proposed that it starts with a minimum service of five professionals. It could be implemented in two years."
The Balearics is the only region of Spain that doesn't have a public allergology service. The need for one and the "social injustice" of there not being one were stressed at a parliamentary committee meeting in early March. There was unanimous political party support in calling on the Balearic government to set up this service for allergies.
Apart from the one specialist there is at present in the public health service, the only other option is to go private. There are a dozen specialists in the private health network in the Balearics, but for many people the cost is prohibitive.