Putting technology to bad use: the case of the Spanish health care system

Here’s a story that will probably be familiar to my Spanish readers, but that might surprise people in other parts of the world.

Last week, after spending the Easter holidays with my wife and family in the northwestern region of Galicia, I stopped off at the Mondariz spa on the way back to Madrid, where we live, to teach an innovation course in the Advanced Management Program, a top management course from IE Business School.

My wife is a chronic sufferer of migraines, and uses a drug called Sumatriptan to combat a complaint that can be crippling. After being away for a week, and having suffered a couple of migraine attacks during that time, she had used the few tablets she had brought with her. In Madrid, using her electronic social security card, she can easily acquire Sumatriptan from any pharmacy, which would have a record of her doctor’s prescription for the drug in its database.

Let me point out here that Sumatriptan has no value on the black market and produces no psychotropic side effects. It simply helps ease the effects of migraine; so popular is it that in many cases it is perfectly possible to purchase the drug over the counter without a prescription.

Needless to say, as we began our journey back to Madrid, and still in Galicia, my…