When you read a headline like this one, most of us would think that it refers to a foreigner living here, but it’s not – it’s a Spanish girl, lying in a coma in London.

Marina has been over a month and a half in England, deep in a coma, with her parents in Atarfe unable to raise the funds to get her home. On the 10th of May her situation hit the provincial press and by the next day a wave of solidarity had begun to move the Spanish Government’s hand.

But that’s not the only good news because her mother, Trinidad Rodríguez, reports that she is showing signs of reacting to stimulus, where she is being treated in the Queens Hospital in Romford, Essex.

On the 22nd of March, Marina, suffered a brain haemorrhage, leaving her in a coma. She had been working as a Spanish teacher and was fully employed and signed up with a National Health Number.

The Spanish Consulate in London acted with alacrity, says the mother, acting as a go-between for the British Education Board and the National Health Office.

There is one other factor working in the favour of Marina’s repatriation: The National Health Service realise that it could cost them a lot more to keep the girl hospitalised for an indefinite period, than to offer to foot the 20,000 euros that the transfer would cost.

Finally, the Sub-Delegate for the Government, Sebastian Pérez, found out about Marina’s problem when he read it in the press, but hastened to inquire if the 20,000 euros needed was the family’s only problem and that he was totally at their disposition. The cynical might consider that his reaction has a lot to do with the Central Government’s recent butchery of the Spanish National Health System…

(News: Atarfe, Granada, Andalucia)