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Vol. 11 Issue 271
679702_DFS_SPANISH_BOX_AD_40x40_MIJAS_COSTA.indd 23/02/2017 11:31 1
EXCLUSIVE By Laurence Dollimore
A BRITISH expat couple are fighting to save their Malaga home from demolition over a technicality. Gill and Bob Ward, both 74, have been locked in a battle with their town hall, which claims their house in Almayate is illegal. Just yesterday the retired couple from Cornwall were given
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Doctors and dentists join Olive Press appeal for ban on dangerous painkiller Nolotil THE Olive Press is calling on Spain to ban a lethal painkiller that is killing countless of unsuspecting expats. British dentists and doctors are supporting the ban after Briton Graham Ward, 75, complained to the Olive Press of how he was prescribed the deadly Nolotil drug by a dentist last week. It’s the very same drug that was blamed for killing his wife in 2006. The Marbella-based expat was furious when he was told to take the painkiller by his Spanish dentist, after suffering from a difficult abscess. His wife Mary, 59, had died after being prescribed the same drug following a double vasectomy at Costa del Sol Hospital. “Within 24 hours she was in intensive care, her white blood cell count plummeted to zero within days,” explains Graham, a former computer technician, from London. She never regained consciousness and was on a life support machine for FOUR months, before spending three years fighting the impact of the drug, which led to organ failure. “The chief surgeon at the hospital promised me he would never prescribe that drug
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Dr Nina King, of Oasis Dental Care in Marbella, fully supports the campaign, telling the Olive Press the drug is not something she prescribes. “It’s not a drug I use, I stick to safe and standard medication,” she said, “And after seeing what damage it can do, it’s a drug I won’t be using in the future.” Marbella-based private doctor Dra. Victoria María Chacón Almeda also agrees the drug is dangerous. “I don’t prescribe the drug,” she told the Olive Press, “I have lots of British patients and I am aware of what it is capable of doing. “There needs to be a lot more research on its impact.”
HAPPIER TIMES: Graham with wife, and Billy Smyth
again. “He said she would be alive if she hadn’t taken it, but I have heard from dozens of Brits and Irish who have been given it,” added Graeme. It is the third victim of the drug the Olive Press has reported on in under a year. Sometimes known also as
Metamizole, Nolotil is banned in the US, the UK, Ireland and most of Europe, but it is prescribed widely in Spain. Irishman William ‘Billy’ Smyth was given a five-day course of the drug in February. But when the 66-year-old returned to a different Spanish
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doctor to get a renewal in April, tests showed the drug had caused a toxic poisoning in his bone marrow and his white blood cell was dangerously low. Billy, a keen sportsman, developed sepsis and necrotising fasciitis as a result and required ‘radical surgery’ to remove the affected tissue in an attempt to save his life.
The dad-of-two later died from septic shock – believed to be linked to taking the Nolotil. Another British expat Hugh Wilcox was prescribed the same medication for mild shoulder pain on the Costa del Sol. He developed severe head Continues on Page 2
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THE Olive Press is giving away three pairs of tickets for two of the best concerts on the Costa del Sol this summer... And all you have to do is answer two simple questions! Michael Bolton takes to the stage for an emotive end of season night at Marbella’s Puente Romano on August 10, while Estepona is set for its biggest rock concert in years with mammoth
EXCLUSIVE By Laurence Dollimore
one month to knock down their only property (pictured above). In a court order seen by the Olive Press, the Wards are warned they will be held criminally responsible if they refuse. “I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m at the end of my tether” Gill told the Olive Press, “I’m totally exhausted from the whole ordeal.” The retired pair, who have now spent thousands of euros on legal costs, bought the old farmhouse ‘in ruins’ in 2004, and were given permission from Velez-Malaga town hall to rebuild it. But when the original wall collapsed of its own accord during construction, the Wards’ architect told them it would be fine and that he would let the town hall know. Unfortunately for
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OLIVE PRESS – 70mm x 40mm FRONT COVER 19 July