See page 10
O LIVE P RESS
The
The English artist who introduced old Spain’s ancient buildings to the world
FREE A NEIGHBOURHOOD row over a luxury property development has gone international following the intervention of the Austrian ambassador to Spain. The years-long battle relates to nine upmarket homes being built next to a 200-year-old finca in Campoamor, Orihuela, which is owned by expats from Austria. The Wesenauer family, who bought their property in 1996, claim the structural integrity of the Casa Langostina villa is under threat by the works, which include multiple swim-
PLEA: Ambassador Drofenik and the finca
COSTA BLANCA
Your expat
voice in Spain
yorkshirelinencostablanca.com
Jávea · Altea
Vol. 5 Issue 128 www.theolivepress.es April 4th - April 17th 2024
Hands off our finca! ming pools - and plan to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. They have now been supported by their country’s representative in Spain Enno Drofenik, who wrote to local mayor Jose Vegera, pleading with him to come up with a fairer solution. “They have had their property threatened for 20 years by an old law regulating planning activity in the Valencian Community,” wrote Drofenik. In 2000, the family were told that they could lose a large part of their own land under the infamous Valencian LRAU planning laws, commonly known as the ‘Land Grab’ law, which allowed developers to take land for tourist home construction with no compensation if it was ‘in the community interest'. The laws were later deemed illegal by the EU and are no longer in force, leading the family to claim they are ‘victims of an extinct law’. Things reached a head last month when construction crews arrived to begin building nine homes and swimming pools on land that used to be their garden. Continues on page 4 Mother Gabriele and one of her
PROTEST: Wesenauer mum and daughter chained themselves to a bulldozer
No to Nolotil! Clinics and hospitals across Spain vow to crackdown on ‘killer drug’ after Olive Press campaign
THREE major private hospital groups have vowed to stop handing out Nolotil to at-risk patients after being contacted by the Olive Press. Grupo Ribera on the Costa Blanca, plus HCB and the Helicopteros SanEXCLUSIVE itarios group all told this paper they By Yzabelle Bostyn were committed to banning the drug for northern European and American The majority died after their white patients. blood cell count plummeted due to The companies said they were side effects from the drug, manufollowing important central govKILL factured in Germany. ernment advice issued in 2018, Ribera, which has many THE Grupo which came about after medical facilities on the Costa Blanca, DRUG campaigner Cristina del Campo made a similar promise, saying: took the issue to the national “We advise against the prescripcourts. tion of Nolotil given that a signifNews of their re-commitment icant part of the (local) populacomes after we launched a tion is foreign and is therefore at campaign in February to stop risk of these complications.” handing out the lethal painkiller And despite the Olive Press re- also known as Metamizole - to ceiving a number of reports that expats and tourists. patients have received Nolotil in The drug - which is banned in HCB hospitals, the Costa Blanca group around 40 countries - is believed to assured us this week they are now ‘folbe behind at least 100 deaths of for- lowing’ Madrid’s recommendations. eigners in Spain. “We are very aware of the recommen-
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dation not to prescribe Nolotil to foreign patients,” insisted the spokesman. A spokesman for Helicopteros told the Olive Press: “Due to our geographical location on the Costa del Sol our patients come from all over the world and so we are particularly aware of the side effects that Metamizole can have. “For this reason, our medical staff are committed not to administer this medication to our patients.” Other hospitals, including Grupo HLA, declined to comment. The positive steps come two months after we launched a second campaign to have the dangerous drug banned for tourists and expat foreigners. Our first campaign in 2017 ended when AEMPS (The Spanish Agency for Medicines) ruled in 2018 that Nolotil must only be used by patients for short periods of time. The ‘informative note’ meant they should be monitored and have regular blood tests to detect
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any severe reaction. It further ruled the drug should also NOT be given to tourists and others ‘who would not have access to such controls and monitoring’. It must also be available by prescription only and on a case-by-case basis, with a patient’s medical history and risk factors also taken into consideration. Despite the advice, deaths however have continued to happen, most recently with 42-year-old British expat Mark Brooks who was prescribed Nolotil in December 2023. When we discovered others had also died following prescription, we felt we needed to act again. After nearly 700 people signed our petition urging health facilities to follow the rules, we began asking hospitals and local health authorities for their commitment. So far, we have received eight responses, with five pledging to follow AEMPs advice. Most notably, the Junta de Andalucia stated that ‘knowing the risk of agran-
Nolotil in numbers
At least 11 patients died after taking Mehave tamizole
in Andalucia, a ment report shows. governThe region has logge at least 141 cases d of agranulo
cytosis brought on by the drug.
In Andalucia alo there have been at leane, st 709 reports of comp lications after taking Metamizo le. Some 58% of Metamizo le pre scriptions in Andalucia are currently for than 180 days, while longer for longer than a yea 38% are r.
ulocytosis (low white blood cell count) associated with metamizole’, its hospitals now follow the official health advice. The Junta added it should only be used for short periods of time, ideally no longer than a week and that any patients given the drug areacostablanca.com should be closely monitored using blood tests. 966 112 428 Sensationally, a spokesman also revealed to us there had been 141 reports of agranulocytosis at the hands of Metamizole in Andalucia, 11 of which YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENCY FOR CALPE, were fatal. BENISSA, MORAIRA AND REGION Other local authorities, including Cantabria and Castilla-La Mancha, also claimed to be following AEMPS advice, while Madrid refused to comment. The drug has already been banned outright in CatalunSee pages 9 & 13 ya, while it is also outlawed in many countries including Sweden, America and the UK.
Tel: 952 147 834 TM
Opinion Page 6