Emergencies in Spain with Sanitas
Every waiting period in your policy stops applying the moment something becomes an emergency. A policy that started yesterday covers a heart attack today.
The number is 112
Across all of Spain, free from any phone including a mobile with no credit, and English-speaking operators are available. You do not need to speak Spanish to call it.
Say where you are first, before anything else. If you are somewhere rural, give the nearest town and any landmark. If you have a Spanish address, know it in Spanish.
For the other emergency and public-service numbers in Spain, see our full list of emergency numbers.
Waiting periods do not apply to emergencies
This is the single most important thing on this page.
Every waiting period in your policy is suspended in a genuine emergency. Surgery normally waits 10 months; in an emergency it is covered on day one. Complex scans normally wait 6 months; in an emergency, immediately. Childbirth normally waits 8 months; a premature or complicated birth is an emergency.
A policy that started yesterday covers a heart attack today.
See every Sanitas waiting period in one place, including how switching from another insurer waives nearly all of them.
When to ring 112 rather than go to a clinic
Chest pain or pressure. Difficulty breathing. Sudden weakness or numbness on one side, a drooping face, or slurred speech. Severe bleeding. Loss of consciousness. A seizure in someone who does not have epilepsy. Severe allergic reaction. Serious injury. Severe abdominal pain of sudden onset. Sudden loss of vision.
Do not drive yourself anywhere if you have chest pain or stroke symptoms.
For heatstroke, stings and the other problems a Spanish summer brings, see our guide to summer health risks and what to do.
Public or private in an emergency
An ambulance takes you to the nearest appropriate hospital, which may well be a public one. Go where the ambulance takes you. Do not argue about insurance while someone is seriously ill.
The paperwork is sorted afterwards, and Sanitas has a process for emergency treatment received outside the network. Ring them as soon as it is practical, keep everything you are given, and do not sign anything you do not understand.
Once stable, transfer to a network hospital can usually be arranged.
Urgencias for the less serious
For things that need seeing today but are not life-threatening – a nasty cut, a suspected fracture, a fever in a child that worries you – a private urgencias unit at a network hospital is normally faster than public emergency. Know where yours is.
Where the emergency units are
85 emergency units across 28 provinces, with 85 named specialists between them – and there is no appointment and no referral: you go, or an ambulance takes you.
- Madrid – 18 units, 18 doctors
- Barcelona – 12 units, 12 doctors
- Cadiz – 8 units, 8 doctors
- Alicante – 6 units, 6 doctors
- Malaga – 5 units, 5 doctors
Only 28 provinces have a listed private emergency unit, so in much of Spain the public system is your emergency route. That is not a gap in your cover, it is how emergency medicine works here.
Before you need any of this
Save 112. Find your nearest emergency unit and save its address. Keep your Sanitas card or the app on your phone. Make sure someone else in the house knows all three.
Find your nearest emergency unit
Browse emergency units in the Sanitas directory – by province, with addresses, phone numbers and a map.
