Eye Doctor appointment for next year

For those of you who don't know about the medical system here in Spain, here is a little rundown.. There are good things and bad things..

The good things: ITS FREE.. yes, 100% free.. all doctors visits (very short waits, most of the time) hospital stay, operations and medicine is about 90% off even very expensive cancer medicine.

The bad things for specialty medicine, you need a referral and if they feel that it is not urgent the wait could be long..(if they see its urgent the time of wait is almost immediate).

Overall, the medicine system works well here in Spain. You can opt to pay for private health insurance about a couple hundred euros a month for an entire family and pay a small co payment and percentage of hospital stay and medicine just like in the states.. Many people here have private insurance but use both systems depending on what answer they are looking for.. In the end if there is a real emergency the socialized hospitals are the ones with the most advanced technological equipment and experienced personnel.. put it this way if you were in a horrible accident and needed urgent care they would send you to a free hospital..

Having said all that, I went in today to my doctor because for sometime now I have been having a lot of eye infections and I haven't been able to wear my contacts for about a year now due to allergies and infections. My doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotic eye drops (as well as prescriptions for my allergy medicine, that way it costs me almost nothing) and gave me a referral to the eye doctor. When I went to the counter to make an appointment the lovely lady at the reception area told me.."ufff, there is a long wait" and I said "ok "she then said "how about January 30th , 2008 at about 10 am" and I said "ok" then she said "in the mean time you can leave your eyeballs here and pick them up then" at to which I said "ok" .... and so now I have the option of waiting until next year or paying 115 euros to go to the vissum center in Alicante Friday morning at 11 am. where they will look at my eyeballs right away.. not sure what to do...

photo google