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French health care


woolybanana
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Looks like it will cover some of the things  have been 'banging on about' for ages without a lot of interest.

I hope they talk about the 'dépassement d'horaires' amongst other things, but certainly the 'poverty trap' between those poor enough to have the CMU and those who have just enough to be over the limit is opening up.

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Even with our mutuelist, dentures and hearing aids would have been very very expensive for us. It isn't as if we are poor, but, somethings we found very very expensive.

Lots of things need a good airing.

 

Years ago my dentist used to tell me that he would have families in to see him who just never went to the dentist, too expensive.

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I've just seen the prog. The idea that people have to put off treatment because they can't afford in a developed(?) country is terrible.

Re the teeth thing, I remember years ago in England people who had severe abdominal problems because years ago, for one reason or another, they didn't go to the dentist.

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The problem re dentists is an issue in the UK.  It has been virtually impossible to get an NHS dentist for many years so many many people haven't bothered with dental treatment for a long time.  I have friends and family who haven't seen a dentist for more than 10 years.

On the subject of healthcare.  Whilst the acute care in the NHS is fantastic (as R51 will testify after a recent emergency aortic endarterectomy) the chronic care remains abysmal. I was supposed to be having an ankle fusion (which I have waited 3 years for) - until I found out that they planned to discharge me 4 hours after the surgery (recommended hospital stay is 2+ days).  My post op anticoagulant treatment (I've had previous DVTs and PEs) was a bag of preloaded injections so I can do it myself!  Given my prior experience was a misdiagnosis of DVT by the post op clinic, a subsequent rendez vous with the crash team, a spell on high dependency and my family being informed my death could be imminent - I am opting to keep the dodgy ankle TYVM.

Mrs R51

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We got back to the UK four years ago and just went and registered with a dentist immediately. In fact for us it was just as it was when we left. I wasn't in the UK to see what happened inbetween. All my friends and family see UK dentists regularly, apart from Dad, who at almost 88 and still quite a lot of his own teeth, doesn't think it worth it unless he ever has a problem now, but until not that long ago, even he was going regularly.

When we go to the dentist we pay £17 or £47 or £200 odd, which includes crowns. Beats the heck out of paying a mutualist every month and then having 250€ after all reimbursements for a crown. We think it is OK.

 

EDIT we did go to our wonderful french dentist every six months. 

I was alway more than aware of what it was like for french health care before the CMU started. Sadly it hasn't helped some.

 

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Maybe it's the area Idun?  There have been negligible NHS dentist vacancies in our area for years.  We hadn't had an NHS dentist for 5 years - my parents tipped us off to our current dentist a year ago as it was accepting NHS patients.  It took <4 weeks for all available NHS slots to go.

Mrs R51

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No NHS dentists where I was, either.  My own only took NHS patients under 18 then it was pay up.  I had an insurance policy with Denplan which cost about £250 a year iirc (I was ten years younger then too) but it did cover everything.  You had to have regular check ups though, and if the dentist thought you weren't doing what she told you in the dental hygiene department, you'd get re-assessed and the premiums would go up.

I think OAPs get NHS treatment more easily.  I expect the dentists get paid more for them.[Www]

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I'm in the NE of England. Really no problem, I just called a dentist's surgery down the road and we all got in. Quite like the dentists at the practice we go to too. It took me nearly ten years in France to find a dentist I like and trusted. It's a good job I left, he was due to retire too.
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We currently live in Buckinghamshire and have a house in West Sussex, both of which are supposedly prosperous areas which arguably have less need of NHS dentists, and there's no shortage of dental practices offering NHS treatment in either place.

Whether or not they are any good is a different matter, but the same sort of comment could be levelled at hospitals and dentists in most places, including France.

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There are NHS dentists in our area of the Thames Valley, too. I attended an excellent one for years, but he retired and was replaced by a young thing who had only worked in central London. She tried to talk me in to having lots of crowns etc to make my smile really beautiful - privately and at huge cost of course. I changed dentists.

I remember reading a few years ago about NHS dentists in various places around the country opening up and being besieged by patients desperate for a dentist they could afford, but a lot more seem to have opened in the last few years - I suppose it became more advantageous for them.

I remember my parents talking about trying to find the money for a GP before the NHS came in - it must have been dreadful. Sad to think that people in UK or France are having such difficulties today.

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We're spoiled for choice for NHS dentists here.. A new one has just opened in our village, in fact, and there's another under 2 miles away and several more in the area.

Talking, however. of France for  mo... several years ago a neighbour died. He was 38, had a son of 7 and a baby of a few weeks. Living in a tiny house with 2 rooms and a dirt floor, he got pneumonia and died in the night, largely because they were too scared they wouldn't be able to pay if they called out the doctor. 38, FGS..in a developed country.

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Have seen dentists here, am not too impressed, now see one who is not French and who trained abroad, he is very good. Dentists in England, well, I lived in London so no probs there. Loads of dentists, even at three in the morning it is (or was) possible to find a dentist.

While I find the story of your neighbour You Can Call Me Betty very sad I am not too surprised.

It does cost to be ill here and while many say it is okay because some doctors won't pay in the cheque until next month there is a lack of logic there. If an examination or appoitment costs X amount and the doctor holds the check because you don't have X amount now, if you have the same income next month you won't have that X next month. The CPAM, Insurance, RAM whatever pays back the money if you're in the system but it is still a problem, or a worry.

This was on another site, [url=http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2012/03/13/plus-de-6-millions-de-francais-n-ont-pas-acces-rapidement-aux-urgences_1667498_823448.html]Reponse Times[/url]. Hmmmm, a return to London seems an attractive idea sometimes!

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We would never ever have called the SAMU if there was an emergency illness when we lived in la campagne, always always the Pompiers. We lived in the village so they would be there very quickly. However, our village covered a vast area much of it up in the mountains. So it would take some time for anyone to get to these hamlets and remote homes, I could well imagine 60 minutes or longer in mid winter.

I do know where the SAMU stations were in the citys, but for those who live in la campagne, would you call them rather than the Pompiers?

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I wouldn't expect the pompiers to do much, but ours were sur place and were very quick at transporting anyone to the nearest hosptial. The SAMU would have taken at least half an hour to get to us they were just too far away. So I suppose that this would depend where someone lived really.

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I haven't posted to this or any other French forums for a while and this thread reminds me why. Elsewhere on the forum 8 or 9 pages of indignant squealing about the perceived poor quality of the NHS. Here Betty points out that a 38 year old man DIED because he thought he couldn't even afford medical care in a 'civilised' country and no body much squeaks at all.

As a member of our local CCAS (social help committee) I am saddened virtually daily by the fact that many people in my commune do not get suitable medical care. I find it amazing that everyone does not think this is huge scandal.
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Perhaps Cerise because people don't want to know, because people always have an an answer of how they (perhaps with their finances) can sort things but there really is another side to here, it is not all as portrayed in various programe but if they said on some of these programes "oh, do bear in mind that unless your are quite well off health care could be a problem" then it wouldn't go down too well.

There was an item on the news last night about Italy, a hospital there where people were waiting up to 72 hours on a trolley in casualty to be seen. It isn't just France that there are problems but it is (the state of) France that concerns us more perhaps.

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Yes Balham, you are probably right. I sadly find that most the English people I meet here have their heads completely in the sand as far as France and its services are concerned. This can only be because they rarely, if ever, have to deal with the incompetent numpties who staff such wondrous organisations as Pole Emploi, CPAM or RSI and because they are fortunate enough to have enough money for a decent mutuelle or to pay for all the extras the French health service runs up. I still however find it odd that they can work themselves onto such a lather about the UK's shortcomings. This after all is a forum about France - you might think the inadequacies of the system here and the fact that their French neighbours might not be getting any healthcare might bother them a bit more.
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Cerise, it won't bother people until it happens to them. It is relatively easy to live anywhere while healthy but it takes little to take one off the path of good health, hopefully for most this deviation is short before good health is restored. For those that are unable to afford even basic healthcare a minor ailment  that is left can soon lead to further ailments.

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The same mindset that makes the so called "floating voter" vote for the party which they imagine will benefit them the most and stuff everybody else.  Human nature, I'm afraid.

I'm alright, Jack.

What happens of course is that social deprivation and unrest eventually jump up and bite them in the b*m.  But still I guess there's a certain sort of person who never connects the two things.  Easier to play ostrich, as you say.

 

It does affect expats too, or it can.  I know an English couple here who went back to the UK recently because they earned too much for any state help and yet couldn't afford top-up (they rented here so were not mortgage-free as I imagine many on this forum are).  She became ill and was in hospital for ten days whilst numerous tests were carried out.  The hospital did allow them a year of staged payments to pay back the 3k that they owed over and above what their CMU paid, but still it finished them in the end.  They're now in a council flat in England.  If they'd been French, they probably wouldn't have had that option.  It's easy to see how those who fall into this unfortunate category can suffer.  Bonkers system.

A friend of mine works in a private hospital here (private in French terms but of course it takes lots of state patients.)  The stories she tells would make some of the UK French residents' hair stand on end.

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[quote user="Cerise"]Yes Balham, you are probably right. I sadly find that most the English people I meet here have their heads completely in the sand as far as France and its services are concerned. This can only be because they rarely, if ever, have to deal with the incompetent numpties who staff such wondrous organisations as Pole Emploi, CPAM or RSI and because they are fortunate enough to have enough money for a decent mutuelle or to pay for all the extras the French health service runs up. I still however find it odd that they can work themselves onto such a lather about the UK's shortcomings. This after all is a forum about France - you might think the inadequacies of the system here and the fact that their French neighbours might not be getting any healthcare might bother them a bit more.[/quote]

I'm afraid it doesn't seem to.

It is true thatnowadays  this  Forum is a lot less rosy-eyed than previously, but there is still a lack of interest in things perceived as 'French'

In the last couple of months I have posted about the scandal of hospital doctors taking a huge extra payment to be seen privately, asked a question about Insurance Policies to cover dependency in Old Age (not a single reply to that one ) as well as trying to start a discussion about the policies of the various candidates in the Presidential election and how they may affect  British residents, a thread with almost no interest.

I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of people here are second home owners,  who don't really feel too bothered by French life.

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