Jump to content
Complete France Forum

french doctors & british patients


mint

Recommended Posts

read an article in the times today about the growing number of french gps undertaking a training programme on the treatment of the increasing numbers of brits who have moved to france. hooray, i thought; life in france could only get easier.

rule number one apparently for treating "les anglais" is, wait for it, "let ladies keep their clothes on"!  i can only hope that the rest of the training programme has rather more going for it than this "taster"!

o la la! can we have this medicine orally rather than per anum?  and no, doctor, i do think this is rather more than "la gripe"!

there we go, we live in hope.  my own intention is, as when i am here in the uk, to steer clear of doctors.  now this is only a personal bee in the bonnet and NOT something i recommend to others.  i read some years ago that the healthiest people are those who live furthest away from their gps!

my own convoluted thinking goes something like this:  if i don't see the quack, he/she can't diagnose me and therefore i cannot be labelled as having ....whatever!

any doctors reading this, please don't take it personally.  i think you all do a wonderful job; i just don't want you to be doing that job on me.

cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More complicated then my late Father's view of the World. Doctor's waiting room are full of people who have infections. Unless you have something they know how to treat avoid them like the plague in case you pick up something they cannot cure.

I always used to enjoy turning up to give blood in the UK.. Nurses who had spent the last month asking potential donors if they had lived in Somalia ,Eritra ., Ethiopia or Djibouti would almost leap into the air when I answered yes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Anton Redman"]

I always used to enjoy turning up to give blood in the UK.. Nurses who had spent the last month asking potential donors if they had lived in Somalia ,Eritra ., Ethiopia or Djibouti would almost leap into the air when I answered yes. 

[/quote]

 

You too, huh? I tried unsuccessfully to give blood for nearly 10 years based on a combination of having been in the horn of Africa (or elsewhere in N/E Africa) for 3 weeks out of every month, having acupuncture, being in SE Asia, and being slightly anaemic..........and the French won't let me give blood because I'm not French. I do see my doctor every day, however, but only because he walks his dog at the same time as me...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Susan"]Here is the article if anyone is interested in reading it.[/quote]

[quote]The French consult for anything, whereas the British come only if they

are really suffering.” A recent study, for example, found that 75 per

cent of the French see their doctor for flu-like symptoms compared with

25 per cent of the British.[/quote]

This aspect of French 'doctor's addiction' is easily explained: if you get a prescription for your flu-like symptoms, you get your money back on all (or most of) the treatment prescribed. If you go to the pharmacie without a prescription and get the same treatment, it comes directly out of your own pocket.

This is possibly going to change soon, as France is trying to move towards more 'self-medication', where simple ailments could be treated without having to obtain a prescription form a GP. This of course, would mean that the remedies in question would no longer be reimbursed by the CPAM, so the change would help plug the Sécurité Sociale deficit.

We're not yet at the same level of the UK, where simple indigestion remedies are sold in supermarkets, but it's a step in the right direction if you want to simply look after yourself.

More about it here: l'express

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going off at a slight tangent, but regarding prescription charges: I must be incredibly stupid because it hadn't really dawned on me until last week when I got a private prescription in the UK......it actually cost me less than the standard UK prescription charge, because the medication in question was cheaper. I wonder just how much we end up paying "over the odds" for basic prescription meds, in order to subsidise the more expensive stuff? Especially as more and more GP's do prescribe generics.....
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...