[EHIC Success!]

I know this is drifting off the original topic a bit, but if you turn up at the emergency department with a sports injury don't they just treat it like any other accident, or do they expect details of your home insurance or sports insurance? When we were in urgences they asked if it was a work injury and we just said no, as he was working on our own house.. but how would it have been different if we had said yes?

[EHIC Success!]

Final update from me.. bill received from hospital for 12 euros .

[EHIC Success!]

An update. Still no bill from the hospital but OH had to go and see a nurse to get the stitches out. She charged him 6 euros and said he could get it reimbursed, but for 6 euros we decided not to bother.

[Medical repatriation to the UK - road ambulance]

I'd say present herself to A&E rather than social services if the person has a medical problem and needs treatment, rather than social services. They only have a duty of care if the person is medically stable but unable to manage basic daily living activities..and I mean basic in terms of not being able to wash, get on and off the toilet and feed themselves.

[Advice needed Moving from France]

I assume your new country will give you health cover there by whatever means. You can get some health travel policies that are annual and will cover you for multiple trips a year that may provide the necessary for cover for trips to France and anywhere else.

[Elderly parent living in france .. needs to come back to te uk]

Hmm..home does sound tricky. Can he get in and out of a chair and walk? I do feel for you.. unfortunately if there are no spaces in the local care homes then it's difficult to see why the options might be at this point, unless maybe see if there are any homes with spaces a bit further away? The hospital could decide to keep him in hospital until a place comes up in a local nursing home but acute hospitals are not safe places for older people with dementia and he may well be as much of a risk there of falling or getting an infection there than he would be at home.

Good idea to talk with AgeUK who my be able to clarify the situation with regard to his entitlements should he come back to the UK, and maybe they will have some ideas re how to get him there.

[EHIC Success!]

We have carte vitales and they asked see OH's. We don't have a mutuelle for the difference but maybe because emergencies are reimbursed at 100% they didn't need anything else? I'll re post if we ever get a bill, but on checking with the person that signed us in, she didn't think there was anything extra to pay.

[EHIC Success!]

Interesting to read of others' experiences. OH walked into a concrete beam on Friday and cut his head open.. prompting a trip to Urgences.

It actually struck me how very like the NHS the whole thing was. He was seen in triage and then got seen properly after another hour, where he was stitched up by an intern, whilst the rest of the team dealt with the 6 emergency ambulances that arrived. In the meantime the waiting room was heaving, filled with a mixture of the sick, the injured, the drunk and the mentally ill, and their relatives.

We have no top up insurance but popped in our way out to check that there was nothing to pay.. OH had to go and buy a tube of sterile Vaseline as apparently it is the best dressing for a head wound. He had a prescription for paracetemol, but we didn't bother to get it as we have loads anyway. He has a prescription for a nurse to take the stitches out in 10 days, for which I assume he will pay but get a percentage reimbursed.

[Elderly parent living in france .. needs to come back to te uk]

What reasons are they giving for him not being able to go home? If it is because he is needing active medical treatment, then yes, I would guess that the hospital does have a duty to keep him in. If it is because he needs help with daily living and can't manage then I don't think they do..and certainly in France the financing of this sort of care is seen as the responsibility of the immediate family. I would be asking them if the care they think he needs could be provided by full time carers in the home until a place becomes available in one of the social care homes. Most care homes run with a waiting list. It a very difficult position to be in. Is there a social worker at the hospital where he is that you could talk it through with. I worked as an Occupational Therapist for years in UK and there are very few conditions that can't be managed at home with care going in.. the determining factors are usually whether the home can be adapted or is suitable for someone who is severely disabled.

[Elderly parent living in france .. needs to come back to te uk]

It's a difficult situation. If he is well enough to travel you could see if you find a care agency that would be able to provide an escort for him. Otherwise the only option will be ambulance, which will be expensive. Once he returns to the UK he will need a permanent address before he can be assessed and entitled to NHS care, and the only way I can see is to either find him a private nursing home, although they are unlikely to want to take him without seeing him, or he will have to stay with a family member. You could just try turning up in A&E with him, but I'm pretty sure all they would do is discharge him to your care. What about paying for full time carers for him in his own home? It may work out cheaper.

Sorry can't offer anything more positive.

[BBC article "trouble on the streets"?]

[quote user="Tom"]And in the UK it is easier for firms to increase output by employing more people. The argument is that this has the effect of lowering the stats for national productivity per person employed.

On the other hand the number of unemployed in the UK is reduced and the amount paid on benefits also.[/quote]

The irony here is that because many of the jobs are paid below the living wage in the UK, the fact that are working actually throws more people onto benefits as they become entitled to family credit and other top ups.

[French girl wanting to spend some time in Britain]

I used to live in one of the seaside towns with lots of language schools. Part of the experience is that the kids were hosted with local families (who received a fee for providing bed, breakfast and evening meals). From what I remember it mostly worked out, but every year some of the local youths would take it upon themselves to beat up a few language students in the town centre. This job was made easy for them by the fact that the language students were forced to carry the obligatory bags, caps and colour coordinated t shirts with the name of the language school emblazoned on it. I can see why parents think a private arrangement might be good.

[Land of milk and honey]

It is interesting..whilst there are quite a few French people who only consider the Arabs and the North Africans to be 'immigrants ' in the negative sense of the word.. I think this is changing.. When you have enclaves of Brits who socialise together, speak little French and don't appear to work then it is easy for everyone to be tarred with the same brush. I have heard this group saying they left UK because their were too many immigrants, being completely unaware of the irony in that statement.

[Another doom and gloom France is stuffed report]

Having no heirs or children who could be chased up for my care.. then I am aiming to liquidate as many of my assets as I can before I get to the point of needing care and to enjoy every last penny. I sort of think it might be better to be in the position of having no money to fund a care home.. at least then they will strive to keep you at home as long as possible as it's ultimately cheaper.

[Pet insurance]

I can't recommend any companies but I looked into it for our dog, as he had to have 2000 euros worth of surgery on a knee and has a 50% of having to have the other one done before long. (It was a TPLO..the plus is it is cheaper than in the UK)

Many insurance companies I looked at will not start a new policy if the dog is over 7 years of age.. some of them over 3 years of age. There are a lot of exclusions.. read the small print carefully. Some won't cover working dogs, hunting dogs or dogs doing other types of sports.

There are different levels of cover and most policies no matter how good seem to have an annual maximum. It is rare to find a policy that will reimburse you 100% for anything..most seem to offer 50% or 80% cover.

Hope you find something to suit you. I couldn't in the end and just decided to put some money away into a savings scheme for the dog.

[Land of milk and honey]

I agree Richard that one way to help is to work to improve things in the countries from where most migrants originate. If things were better there then there would be no need or desire for people to pack up and leave, and even if they wanted there would most likely be a legitimate route.

It still doesn't solve the problem of what to do in the meantime, although as I say, once a few nice middle class hard working people have had to pick up the bodies of drowned migrants from their holiday resort I have no doubt that the 'let them drown' group will be silenced.

From what I understand about the UK, if you are caught and are found to be staying illegally you are deported.. the same as for many other countries. Of course no one really knows how many people live in any country 'illegally' under the radar. There was talk at some point that if you were living in France and 'inactif' without proper medical insurance you were 'illegal', but I can think of many people who do that and no one has arrested them or deported them yet! The whole time you are living under the radar though..in any country, you get nothing..no benefits, no health cover, no support, unless there are a few charities that will help. Once you start to have to interact with the system to get anything your legal right to reside is called into question. By it's very definition and illegal immigrant cannot claim state assistance unless their status is changed.

[Land of milk and honey]

Do you have evidence or links for all of this Woolybananna. I ask because whilst I agree that the main criminals in all of this are the traffickers I think many of those taking to the boats are families. I also think that much of the crime is from a far more old fashioned source, with Mafia affiliated gangs responsible for many of the events off the Italian coast.

On the whole, if people are 'illegal' they are expelled..by the very nature of that definition. I think cooperation in Europe is better way of solving it than identity cards. France has identity cards but it doesn't stop people arriving illegally, anymore than it would in the UK.

I have problems with the notion of leaving boatloads of people to drown, even if they are there at the hands of unscrupulous people and their own desire for what they believe will be a better life. After all that is why many of us chose to live in France and so I don't feel I can criticise others for that ideal. I'm not a Christian or a Samaritan but something does not sit right with my conscience about this.

[Land of milk and honey]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11192208/Drown-an-immigrant-to-save-an-immigrant-why-is-the-Government-borrowing-policy-from-the-BNP.html

Interesting article in The Telegraph..I wonder if people will be quite so supportive of this hard line when their idyllic holiday in the sun is ruined by their kids discovering the washed up bodies of drowned asylum seekers next to the sun loungers.

[Land of milk and honey]

I would say this is as typical of the reasons that people become migrants as any other reason.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29694066

Don't you have to be pretty desperate to risk your life by entrusting your family to traffickers? I doubt there are many that would be prepared to chance it just for money.

[Land of milk and honey]

I think in France there is not the same stigma about getting state assistance. We've never applied for any sort of help..but we automatically get an allowance for the tax d'habitation as our income is low. Never asked for it..just happened automatically after we filed our tax forms.

[Land of milk and honey]

In that case Chancer, growth will be finite..ie each person replaces themselves and eventually dies, so overall the population does not increase once the finite number of generations is living. What you highlight is the fact that populations increase in real terms because of increased longevity due to advances in health care.

[Land of milk and honey]

It's always been the case that population is controlled when people feel economically prosperous..but if you feel that you have no future, that any children you have may not survive until adulthood, etc then you continue to procreate. It's an instinctual Darwinian thing to do with survival of the species. Education and a good standard of living is how you control population. If you look at population growth in the UK and France for example if is currently stable. In fact I think I read somewhere that the current average number of children per woman is below two in many European countries, meaning that the population will decrease. China is currently facing a huge crisis caused by its restrictive policies on population control, in that it is about to face a massive increase in the ageing population, living longer with no family to support them. There could be more over 75s than working age adults soon. If you make it to 85 you have a 1 in 5 chance of having dementia and 4 out of 5 will need some help with daily living, so a huge expense with less and less people to pay for it or to provide the care.

[Top-up, mutuelle - why?]

True but round this way almost everywhere charge the tariffs officiels. Except for the dentist doing my implant and bone graft..but then his fee would not be reimbursed by most mutuelles either. I am actually getting 40 or so euros reimbursed for the crown. If I had a mutuelle I would get back an additional 60 euros, but nothing close to the 1200 or so euros for the entire procedure.

I'm not necessarily against getting a top up and if I thought I would be better off in the long run I would and also if I didn't think I had some money behind me if I got an unexpected bill. In fact I remain open minded to the idea at some point in the future, but so far I haven't seen anything to convince me.

[Top-up, mutuelle - why?]

This link takes you to the ameli page that tells you what percentage is reimbursed by the state.

http://www.ameli.fr/assures/soins-et-remboursements/combien-serez-vous-rembourse/releve-et-taux-de-remboursement/les-taux-de-remboursement.php

[Top-up, mutuelle - why?]

According to chu Nantes

Hospital fees include:

•hospital stay fees (on day per day price basis);

•the fixed daily hospital charge;

•an additional lump-sum if you request a private room.

The hospital stay fees:

In general, excluding exonerations and special cover schemes, 80% of hospital stay fees are reimbursed. You must pay for the remaining 20% which can be reimbursed by your top-up medical insurance.

There are cases where you may be exonerated from the remaining 20%:

•in the case of a long-term illness, conditions conferring exemption or poly-pathology;

•in the case of disability recognised by the social security system;

•after the 31st day of hospitalisation;

•if a procedure costing € 91 or more, or a K50 grade procedure is carried out. (In this case, a standard cost of € 18 is charged, to be paid by the patient or the insurer providing his/her top-up medical cover);

•in the case of pregnancy (as from the 1st day of the 6th month of pregnancy until 12 days after the birth);

•for newborn children aged less than 30 days;

•for treatment provided in relation with an occupational accident or industrial disease recognised by the social security system.

The fixed daily hospital charge:

This corresponds to the services such as accommodation, meals, etc. In most cases, it is not reimbursed by the French social security medical insurance system. This sum is due for each day you spend in hospital, including the day on which you are discharged. It can be paid for by your top-up medical insurance.

. Accordingto Ameli.fr the day charge is fixed at 18 euros and that is not reimbursed. Other charges are reimbursed at 80%. So..if the hospital charge 450 euros per day hospital stay fees 80% of that is reimbursed making a daily charge to be picked up by you of 90 euros, plus 18 euros accommodation fee..so for a few days in hospital 1000 euros is about right. Not saying that is insignificant but it is a years payment to a mutuelle and significantly less than the cost of the dog's surgery! If you are in hospital more than 31 days it is reimbursed at 100%.