Related news: Mallorca tourism: UK holidaymakers warned to take out travel insurance

The Balearic Parliament today (Tuesday) backed a decree that makes 061 the sole health authority for coordinating all urgent and emergency care, as well as cooperating with private health centres which want to and meet certain requirements to be able to attend to tourists in the Balearics .

The decree gives the SAMU 061 emergency service the status of health authority, making it the sole body for the management and coordination of urgent and emergency health care in the Balearics. It also creates a network of health centres to provide urgent and emergency care for EU and UK citizens travelling temporarily to the Balearics, combining private and public resources.

The Regional Minister of Health, Manuela García, said that “it is necessary to incorporate new forms of shared management” to deal with the “increasingly frequent” saturation of emergency services when the high tourist season begins.

The minister considers it necessary to “count on the collaboration of private health centres and services that are interested in this to be able to make available personal and material resources that may be underused when the public resources are saturated”, in order to attend to EU and British citizens who are on holiday in the Balearics.

The increasingly frequent saturation of the emergencies service requires measures to be adopted “as soon as possible” and “to mobilise and seek the support of the private health network” with free voluntary membership, said García.

She stressed that in order to be able to provide this urgent care, private health centres must quality meet requirements on a par with public ones. The requirements are that they have a hospitalisation service, emergency service, emergency surgical care, ICU and their own or contracted medical transport service.

The minister explained that the IB-Salut Balearic health service will annually review the care provided and the economic regime in accordance with current public prices. The financing of these services will be limited to 65% of the public prices, the remaining 35% are the costs that IB-Salut must assume for the management.

In the meantime, the British travel association ABTA has issued a warning to all British holiday makers to take out travel insurance in order to avoid the high costs. The Travel Association is reminding customers travelling overseas to take out travel insurance as soon as they book their trip, after data shows the medical costs travellers without insurance could face have risen substantially since 2019 .

People requiring an air ambulance will now find that the cost of being flown safely home on a long haul flight will now cost more than twice the amounts charged in 2019. In some instances customers who have fallen seriously ill or had a major accident will need to be flown home in an air ambulance, with the necessary high quality medical assistance. In 2019, an air ambulance from the European Union back to the United Kingdom cost between €15,000-20,000 - this rose in 2023 to between €25,000 and 30,000. Worldwide costs are even higher, rising in 2019 from €35,000-40,000 to in 2023 €75,000-85,000*, more than doubling.

These air ambulance and other medical costs should be covered by a comprehensive travel insurance policy. Customers may sometimes rely solely on the General Health Insurance Card (GHIC) , which allows UK citizens access to state medical care in the EU and a handful of other destinations. However, not all of these services are provided free of charge and air ambulance costs are not covered by GHIC, nor is the UK government under any obligation to cover any medical costs. This means that if you don’t have travel insurance, then you are liable to pay the full costs yourself, along with any other medical treatment.

ABTA is encouraging people to take out travel insurance as soon as they book their trip – that way you are covered straight away, including if you have to cancel for an unforeseen reason, like illness. It is also important to check that any activities you plan to do are covered by the policy and specialist insurance for activities such as winter sports is purchased. Customers should also always declare any pre-existing medical conditions at the time of taking out the insurance policy or risk invalidating their cover.

Graeme Buck, ABTA’s Director of Communications, said: “Every year we see very sad stories of uninsured people who have fallen ill or had an accident whilst overseas and are running up large medical bills. “They often resort to setting up a Go Fund Me page or similar, but they will now find they need to raise substantially more money, with air ambulance and other medical costs having gone through the roof. “It is simply not worth the risk of financial ruin , simply to save a few pounds, so always take out travel insurance at the time of booking your holiday or other travel arrangements.”

Jennifer Anderson, Director for Consular & Crisis, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “Travelling without insurance can be expensive and distressing if things do go wrong when you are abroad. “The good news is that purchasing the right travel insurance does not take long and could save you a lot of money and stress.

“I encourage anyone booking travel to make sure your travel insurance covers the places you visit, the duration of your visit and any planned activities and do disclose any medical conditions so your cover remains valid.”

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