Our regional health service is a vast system that can be broken down into the following areas:

Primary Care
In 2007 there were more than 5,200 General Practitioners - or medicos de familia - working in nearly 1,500 public clinics, or Centros de Atención Primaria (CAP) (link to New Page http://www.andalucia.com/health/ambulatorio/home.htm), to provide primary care across this region. According to official information this means that all citizens have a health centre that can be reached "within a few minutes by standard transportation". In actual fact, of course, this mainly applies to those living in cities, towns or reasonably sized villages (if they're lucky).

Specialist Care
Specialists work on an outpatient basis at primary care centres, specialised one-stop, out patient diagnostic centres known as "CARE" centres and at hospitals. In 2007 there were nearly 30 hospitals spread across Andalucia. In order to see a specialist you need to visit your family doctor in order to obtain an appointment.

Special Organisations
There are a number of health services that operate under the SAS umbrella but are considered as special organisations or branches within the regional public health system. They are:

• Mental Health Care
• Emergency Services
• Organ Transplant Coordination
• The Blood Transfusion Network

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