A SECOND-DIVISION football team player says he was forced to pay for private medical treatment after the State hospital he was taken to refused to speak to him in Spanish.
Vitolo, midfielder for CD Tenerife, broke his nose during a match against Girona FC and was taken to A&E at the Costa Brava capital's Doctor Josep Trueta hospital.
But he says the doctors and nurses would only speak to him in catalán, despite his protesting that, as he comes from the Canary Islands, he does not understand the regional language of the north-eastern territory.
Staff apparently reminded him that, in accordance with Catalunya's regional laws, they had the right to use 'their' language in all public and private spheres.
Yet although catalán is a co-official language in the region, the entire population of Catalunya speaks and understands Castilian Spanish, the national tongue of Spain, and for most of them, both Spanish and catalán are their native languages.
In the end, Vitolo says, he had to go to a private hospital because he could not understand the staff at the State-run centre.
Not all regions in Spain have a co-official language, but those which do are increasingly pushing it to the forefront.
In some areas, regional tongues co-exist with Spanish or are simply another option, but in others, they even come first.
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