London: An 81-year-old British retired antiques dealer who lives in Spain has said he fears his marriage to his Russian wife could be destroyed because Theresa May’s proposals for EU citizens will not cover his health care. Tony Stone has retired to Spain and relies on the current rules whereby the NHS reimburses UK pensioners for treatment in another country.
This agreement is at risk because of Brexit and Stone says he could not afford to pay for his hospital bills on his state and small private pension. He says he would not be able to return to the UK with his wife because she has been refused entry as a Russian national. Stone built up one of the largest antique box dealerships in the world with two shops in Mayfair and Portobello in London, but he went bust in the financial crash and moved to Spain because it was more affordable.
Ten years on, he fears he could lose everything all over again because the British government has failed to offer to guarantee the continuation of reciprocal health care arrangements for pensioners who have retired to countries elsewhere in the EU. “Our situation is extremely serious. If, as expats, we don’t get reciprocal health care in Spain; we will only be able to stay here if we take out private health care insurance, which at my age would be prohibitively expensive and we could not afford.”
Stone is one of 70,000 British pensioners in Spain registered as retired who fear their future health care costs have become a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. British tourists may lose their right to reciprocal health care if they fall ill on holiday in Europe, but the loss of ongoing health care cover for pensioners is a more significant issue in Brexit talks.
Stone remarried in Britain in 2010 after his wife of 51 years died and he moved to Marbella on the Costa del Sol with his second wife, Maryna, a Russian doctor, in 2010. A year later he suffered a serious illness and feels deeply indebted to the Spanish health service.
“In 2013, I had a major operation in Spain to remove an intestinal thrombosis and it has taken four years to recover from it. I spent two years after the OP wheelchair-bound and have to report every two weeks to have a blood test. The Spanish health service saved my life and I am almost back to normal now,” he said. Brexit has shattered his retirement, he said, because if he was forced to return to the UK he could only do so without his wife as she has been refused a visa from the Home Office.
“Words cannot express what I think of Theresa May,” he said. He said Costa del Sol was famous for pockets of garish wealth, with Puerto Banus just outside Marbella famed for its super-yachts and fast cars. But Stone added: “It’s the skint ones like us that are at risk” in the Brexit negotiations.
Campaigners have already warned that hundreds of thousands of pensioners may have to return to the UK to be able to use NHS services unless the reciprocal care arrangements remain in place. Stone receives a UK state pension of about £600 a month plus a small monthly private pension of £150. He also receives a disability benefit of £75 per week from the UK. “We are able to just about manage as living in Spain is much cheaper than the UK. I had a good business in the UK and owned a house but lost everything in 2008 during the financial crash. We now rent a small apartment. I have no savings,” he said. “We married in 2010 after my first wife died and my new wife was granted a five-year fiancee visa which allowed her leave to stay. After we moved to Spain her visa expired in 2015 and when she applied to renew it, it was refused, even despite an appeal.
“If we don’t have reciprocal health care rights our situation will be that we can’t stay in Spain and if I move back to the UK, then my marriage ends,” said Stone. Under the present system, British pensioners who retire elsewhere in the EU have their health care costs reimbursed by the NHS. The system saves the NHS about £450m a year, a senior official at the department of health told a select committee earlier this year. Paul McNaught told the committee that Spain charges an average of €3,500 a pensioner treated compared with €5,000 charged by the NHS. However, the continuation of the arrangement is not guaranteed under Theresa May’s proposals to protect the rights of EU citizens, including 1.2 million Britons living elsewhere in the EU. While the EU has proposed to guarantee all rights that EU citizens affected by Brexit currently enjoy, the UK has offered a weaker promise to “seek to protect” them in negotiations.