Brown Forms and Mad Doctors..... as in angry

[Teamedup]

I've been to see my toubib today. His machine won't take carte vitales anymore. Because of the changes and he is refusing to buy yet another. So we are back to brown forms.

He is so angry, I mean angry about the reforms. He is sick of not earning much and being messed about. In fact he said he would consider a move to l'Angleterre, where at least he would get a decent wage.

And the other doctor in the practice had also been complaining bitterly last time he saw him.

 

This great health service and all done on the cheap, doesn't it make you proud.

[Poppy]

Pleased, well I guess not really to hear that somebody else has experienced negativity in the FRENCH health service. We have been in France for 16 years and  in all that time I never felt the French system despite media quotes was as good as UK. Is it just me?

Jan often lost in the LOT

[Teamedup]

As I said, my GP is disenchanted with it all at the moment. He's been to manifs and everything. And he told me how to do more or less what we want within the new system anyway. It's full of holes, and not been set up properly. I suppose that as he is so fed up his lousy pay is getting to him too. I felt really sorry for him.

I have had the odd hiccough with the system here, but nothing really, so that means it is fine as far as we are concerned. Our family always seems to be OK in the UK too. So I have little to say about either system.

I can't help but wonder what the trou in the budget would be like if they did pay decent wages, chicken and egg I suppose. All a bit of a mess really.

[maxsan]

Perhaps it is the region or the doctor. We and our friends have, unfortunately, had to make use of the French health system. All of us have nothing but praise for our doctors and for the hospital staff.  There is no comparison with the UK system which is basically a postcode lottery which determines what kind of care you get and when you get it.  Is there anything you actually like about France TU?

Perhaps a year in Angleterre might give you a different perspective.

[Teamedup]

Internested,I've known my GP for 22 years we are on first name terms, our kids used to play together and still see one another. I have simply reported his mal content. It won't affect me, but it could  well  if I was staying. He could leave his practice he is very disillusioned as could the other GP we have, whom I known equally long and is also disillusioned. Maybe you have to really 'know' les gens before they open up to you hein?

So what do you and your friends consider poorly paid health workers to be, your hand maidens? Because I, at least don't see them in that light and am more than well aware that we are getting it all on the cheap.

 

Don't talk to me about a post code lottery. It is here too. I can't go to my local A&E and be seen immediately, apart from things like heart attacks etc. The minimum time I would expect to wait is four hours and maybe six would be normal. There just isn't enough staff to be stood around waiting for patients.  How does that work then in other regions, because  it shouldn't be like that anywhere, the hole in the seçu can't afford staff stood around in case Katie-Anne falls off the swing. And every time I hear such a thing on here am gob smacked. We have waiting lists for things. I live in one of those regions that french people move to for work. Busy hospitals and the general hospital is certainly understaffed.

 

Think what ever you want about me. The idea of me being some sort of saddo or glum amuses me enormously. I see France as it is warts and all and I know I have had a very good and quite privileged life here. Who would stay in a foreign country and be unhappy........ ROFL what a silly notion that is.

 

ps I see England warts and all too. I'll be perfectly fine.

[SaligoBay]

Perhaps a year in Angleterre might give you a different perspective.

And perhaps a year near TU's local hospital (or mine, for that matter!) might give YOU a different perspective? 

Unless you think we're imagining the long waits? 

[Ron Avery]

TU

Oh Doom and gloom again, why do you think you speak for all of France?

So your Doctor is unhappy, so what?

You could go into any company in Europe and find an employee who is fed up with their job, same with UK and French GP's, but that does not mean that the whole French or UK Health systems are collapsing.

I'm with internested on this one, not sure where “what do you and your friends consider poorly paid health workers to be” came from, who wrote that?

Strikes me that hospital workers in France are not that poorly paid or on the SMIC like they would be in the UK.

For the record, my GP is very happy, he likes his brand new car and smart new surgery. He also approves of the new registration system. So by your measure of a sample of one GP, the French Health System is marvellous and everything is fine.

I also went to visit a French friend in our local hospital recently and was very impressed, it was clean, spacious, and modern with smart friendly staff and mostly private rooms. I compared that to my recent visit to Basildon..........

Perhaps your GP mate should stop moaning about his lot and try to change things for the better, bet he is still there in a year's time though.

[SaligoBay]

Ron, I think you're being unfair.   There are many excellent things about the French health service, but there are also many problems.   If you widen your reading matter, you might see a different picture.

Why did all those French surgeons disappear to the UK last year?  Not for fun!

I have in front of me (purely by chance) an article about childbirth in France, entitled "Accoucher l'été, c'est le parcours des combattants".   Women in labour on stretchers in hospital corridors?  Yes I know, not where YOU live, but countrywide, where many many real everyday French people live.  Over 160 maternity units have closed in the last 10 years.

Look: "Notre pays souffre d'une pénurie de sages-femmes:  au Royaume-Uni, on en compte 34 000 pour 700 000 naissances annuelles;  en France, elles ne sont que 17 000 pour 800 000 accouchements par an.... et 12 000 seulement exercent à plein temps!   Quant aux obstetriciens, leur nombre a diminué de 40% en 10 ans."

Bet that's a first for you - something in France that the French say compares unfavourably to something in the UK! 

TU is not being negative, it's only chat between people, just the kind of thing real French people talk about all the time.  She's just pointing out to les Anglais what the French already know too well, that there are problems in the health service.  

I know many of you have hospital staff waiting for you to hurt yourself, but many millions of others don't.   Or maybe they don't count?     

[Hegs]

Here is a slighly more unbiased view: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/799814.stm

"The first ever "league table" of world health care places the UK in 18th place - and ninth in Europe.

This means the UK trails behind countries like Greece, Malta and Oman, but is ahead of Germany and the US.

France heads the league table, which was produced by the World Health Organisation, while war torn Sierra Leone came in last. "

"The study echoes the findings of opinion polls carried out in France, where people consistently register a high degree of satisfaction with their level of health care.

By and large, hospitals are clean and efficient, waiting lists are short, general and specialist doctors are in plentiful supply.

The UK spends just 5.8% of its gross domestic product - the total income earned by the nation - on healthcare.

This compares to 9.8% in France and 10.5% in Germany - and 13.7% in the US. "

>Why did all those French surgeons disappear to the UK last year? Not for fun!

Those French surgeons, who incidentally were complaining about their pay not the condition of the French health service, decamped to the UK to highlight what would happen to the French health service if reforms continued down the *Anglo-Saxon* path.

For the situation with midwifes, how can you really compare the difference in absolute numbers - the role of the midwife in the UK and France being so very different. In any case, Britain has its own shortage: http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/story/0,8150,1440501,00.html

"Meanwhile, Britain's midwife shortage has been going on for so long it has almost become a cliche. Sue Macdonald, education and research manager at the Royal College of Midwives and a midwife herself, dates it to the 1990s when there were cuts in nurses as well as her own profession. "

France: "However, many women complain about an over-medicalisation of what should be a natural process. Health spending cuts have created shortages of both midwives (40% of hospitals have at least one midwife post vacant) and obstetricians, and led to the closure of nearly 20% of small maternity units."

[SaligoBay]

Why does everything have to be brought down to a childish "but it's ever so much better than Britain" comparison?   What's the point in that, it helps nobody!   It's very backward-looking, and is a bit dull for those of us who aren't obsessed with Britain (and that includes most French people, btw - they don't REALLY want to be told ad nauseam how awful it is ).    

When you grow out of it and actually look at France for what it is, in itself, then maybe a reasonable discussion about these things will be possible.

[Teamedup]

A nurses starting salary in France is just over 1300 euros per month brut. Takes 21 years to get up to maximum salary on that grade which currently is around 2300 euros a month brut. Just a basic nurse without extra specialisation.

A nurse starts on around £17000 a year in the UK and for the unambitious will go up to over £19k in a few years, but nowhere even near 21 years.

 

 

 

 

 

GP's brand new cars, brand spanking new surgery. How does he do that then? Family money? GP's just get what we pay them. Now unless he has some conveyor belt he'll be earning pretty similar wages to the GP's in our village. So not well off.

 

 Simply. For all the doctors used to make referals they didn't have to in the past. Now they have to. They aren't getting paid for this extra work. Their carte vitale machines need changing as they won't accept the new reforms into their old card machines, so the doctors  have to buy the new soft wear. In fact they are getting no benefit whatsoever from the changes and most certainly no more money. And your GP hasn't been to the manifestations and he's happy.  

Well good for him.

 

My doctor will have been with other concerned doctors demonstrating against these reforms. He isn't a lone looney.

 

So it is top of the league.

 

Where does all the money go?

[Will]

Our GP has just got a new car. Don't know what it is (most current cars look the same to me) other than the fact it is very small. She had to replace her 15-year-old Ford Fiesta because it got just too unreliable for her to do home visits and emergencies and rely on getting back to the surgery to deal with a whole morning's worth of appointments followed by a full afternoon of unscheduled consultations. But then Mrs C has to have a new, reliable car too for her job with an agent immobilier, which pays the SMIC plus a minuscule bonus on sales, from which she has to find all the car running expenses (including full insurance for carrying clients, and which counts much the same as it would for running a taxi).

Our French GP can't afford the machine to process cartes vitales for the old system, let alone the new; she can't even afford the computer and all the software that she thinks she's going to be forced to have to deal with the new patient records systems. Her surgery is in the sous-sol of her house, she also has the luxury of a waiting room with a few chairs and a light bulb. Yet she's the most popular GP for miles around with no shortage of patients, even from adjoining departements. She's no fan of the 'reforms' either.

People say this is better than in Britain. There, my sister was an auxiliary nurse some years ago until she became a veterinary nurse in order to earn more money. Now she has just retrained (a hard two year course) as a theatre nurse specialising in anaesthetics and at last is getting something near a living wage. Still, our last GP in England had a flashy new surgery as part of a large practice, he had a car and chauffeur laid on to do home visits and emergencies, and you could always get an appointment for the following day. We were probably more fortunate than the average, but there you go.

Sorry if that makes me (like TU) seem anti-French to some other forum members. We have no complaints with the health service in either France or GB, but as we are both working and paying cotisations (and Mrs C's employer pays a hefty amount on top of what she pays herself) we sometimes feel a bit envious of the retired English here, or those on early retirement pensions paying their mere 8% and getting the same as - or apparently more than - us.

[Ron Avery]

If you are going to quote figures TU get your facts right and comparable, you are not quoting like for like.

Student nurses, the starting grade in the UK do not get 19k a year, far from it, in fact their pay is so low despite bursaries and allowances that their union advertise "UNISON nationally is campaigning for “Pay not Poverty” for all Student Nurses & Midwives" They are that well paid and are dropping out in droves!

"A" Grade nurses the lowest paid nurse in the UK start at #9700. Way below the French. The lowest grade of qualified nurse in the UK after being a student gets 16K not 19K.

You also mix monthly and annual salaries. The annual equivalent of your poor French starter is 15600E for a 35 hour week compared to 37.5 hour week in the UK, not such a big gap when you get the comparisons lined up is it? Anyway, what has nurses salaries got to do with your disaffected GP???

In a recent survey The French Health system came out best in Europe so they must be doing something right.

How can our GP be the same as yours? In a big village or town a GP will have more patients. If he sees more patients he gets paid more surely, perhaps our man gets on with the job and sees more people and because he is a good doctor more people go to him and he earns more money. Maybe your Luddite should stop wasting his day protesting and moaning to all his patients!!

There are benefits to the new system, the GP's are not now wasting their time seeing timewasters who go from doctor to doctor seeking the opinion that they want and the new system will carry all patients’ medical histories, which must be to their benefit. Sounds like you chose the wrong doc when you registered, no matter, you can change without too much fuss!!

[Hegs]

>Why does everything have to be brought down to a childish "but it's ever so much better than Britain" comparison?

Because sometimes it is better. If your position is, "it's all the same in France except when it's worse", what's the point of that, that's just back to bus stop griping.

France has, of itself, decided so far to spend more money from hard working people like me to give a higher level of social protection that the UK. I *know* that the extra social security payments I pay give me benefits which don't exist in the UK if I am made redundant, sick etc. And also there retirement, and medical care etc.

Of course, in the UK I had private medical insurance so I was covered. Like hell, the only claim I made in 8 years they wriggled out of and left me with a 1k bill.

Then we have the international comparison: collegues in the US have to pay their own pensions, health care and unemployment insurance in the US and that really costs a small fortune. But they pay it. Friends in the UK do not realize how many benefits have been taken away and how much of a precarious position they are in if the economy there continues its downturn.

You can argue that the model of high social security spending is wasteful, you can argue that it is wrong; but if you want to start arguing that the net effect of this extra spending doesn't produce better healthcare, you'd better have some good evidence. Especially as at least some of us have found the real life experience in France much better.

>> Now unless he has some conveyor belt he'll be earning pretty similar wages to the GP's in our village. So not well off.

Not necessarily. Your GP is paid by the number of consultations he makes. He seems to have a lot of time to chat, so I guess he is not too busy. So I guess he doesn't make too much. Have you asked the same of a busy doctor?

>Where does all the money go?

I am yet to see a report of someone dying in France because the local authority has decided his or her drugs are not affordable. I am not saying it doesn't happen, just I don't read about it week in week out like I did in the UK.

[SaligoBay]

just I don't read about it week in week out like I did in the UK.

Well, there's just one of the problems with this kind of discussion!  References to the UK seem to be based on Daily-Mail type doomy headlines about the entire NHS.  References to France seem to be based on "well, I'm okay in MY cute little village, thank you very much, so I see no problem".

Those surgeons - so they didn't want to go the dreaded "Anglo-Saxon" way .  Fine, but why bleat so loudly about it if there's no perceived threat?   It was just a little whim, was it, their next little jaunt will be to object to the Martian Way? 

My last real-life contact with a hospital was for my son's broken arm.  I can tell you that 3 hours into a 4-hour wait in Montpellier casualty, it would have been very little comfort to me, and less than none to my son, to have you tell us smugly that it would be even worse in Britain!  

That thing about Britain "arriving" at point X ten years after America, and France arriving ten years after Britain has a certain truth to it.   Obesity is arriving, the health service has big problems.   You can shut your eyes and try to deny it, just because it's still "better than Britain", but isn't it more sensible to admit that there's a problem, and try to nip it in the bud?

Thank you for starting this one, TU!    

[Iceni]

There is no "one France" - Hicksville where we live in underpopulated North Lot is nothing like the big cities or even the big towns where TU and SB reside.

Our local doctor is a man of a certain age - no assistant, no visible computer, no borne for cv (we pay our €20 and then submit 2 claims), no appointment system just turn up and wait but he gives as much time per patient as the patient wants. Frustrating sometimes but living here is beginning to teach me new levels of acceptance. Will he want to bother to change to meet the new regime ? Will he be replaced or will we have to travel further when our man decides that he has had enough ? Watch this space as they say.

Many aspects of life here are better than the life we had in Essex and so far the health system falls into that category but we are long enough in the tooth to know that the rose tinted specs sometimes lie a bit.

We are grateful to the "old timers" - TU, SB  and,yes, even Miki to tell us what life is like elsewhere even though the truth is not always what we like to hear.

BTW our old doc has manged to identify the cause of pain that Di has suffered on and off for 30 years - largely through listening - so for now at least we are grateful we moved.

John

and

[Miki]

Bill said “……we sometimes feel a bit envious of the retired English here, or those on early retirement pensions paying their mere 8% and getting the same as - or apparently more than – us”

There is certainly a lot to be said for coming here in retirement. I used to think we were doing it right but it seems to me that the early retired and the retired do seem to me, to get the most out of France. Healthcare for a start, which often kicks in more often during those years will see people, once used to city environments where British GP’s are under pressure through sheer numbers, probably find it easier to make an appointment with a French Doctor due to lower numbers living in their vicinity (yes, even including the infamous French hypos that seem to think Mondays are a regular date !) and the Hospitals more likely to have a quicker turnaround for ops. All this is probably more obvious to the “older” person, than many of the young Brits who come here to work and not to lunch, party, do up their dream home, learn the language (don’t get carried away Miki )

It does though, give a false impression of the French health service in general.

The black hole is huge, a start to help close this gap started this year with the one euro non reimbursable part. No walking around from Doc to Doc for 2nd (3rd ?) opinions and then filling up a bin liner with medicines. Doctors moving abroad, these things alone does not strike me as service without serious problems and I am not judging it against the UK but as a stand alone fact. Some of us won't mention the flipping CRDS and CSG either!!

Ron "...Maybe your Luddite should stop wasting his day protesting and moaning to all his patients!!"

So what would that do ? Would he not simply be joining others not looking at the whole picture by putting his head in the proverbial and pretend all is well, as you are an alright jack ?

Ron “..There are benefits to the new system, the GP's are not now wasting their time seeing timewasters who go from doctor to doctor seeking the opinion that they want and the new system will carry all patients’ medical histories, which must be to their benefit”

Hang on, how is it wasting the Doctors time ? Their time being “wasted” makes them money ! No sick, no pay !! Even 2nd and 3rd opinion seekers are (were) welcomed by any Doctor. New system ? Many Doctors in France have been able to do this for several years already.

Ron “Sounds like you chose the wrong doc when you registered, no matter, you can change without too much fuss!!”

Why should TU change, she has not said he was not a good Doctor ?

SB said "....I can tell you that 3 hours into a 4-hour wait in Montpellier casualty, it would have been very little comfort to me, and less than none to my son, to have you tell us smugly that it would be even worse in Britain! "

Oh how true !

Our Daughter spent hours in a certain hospital here, after a car in which she was travelling went off the road and in the sudden stop, she had 2 teeth pushed back in her mouth, she was not seen properly for 2 hours, then given painkillers with water, which then meant that even if a surgeon was available, they would not want to operate. Hours later, when it was obvious that they were not doing anything or very little anyway, we decided to take her from this hospital to a clinic 40 minutes away, who operated once the painkillers and water taken had worn off, result two teeth which are now turning grey due to the length of time the teeth were partially out of socket (experts decision). So what do I say, good clinic but bad hospital ?

If this had happened in the UK, a call to the red tops and this would have been given print space. The hospital approached etc for an intervie etc. Here, well the hospital simply said that there was a lack of staff that day due to ongoing cutbacks. No argument there but we have a daughter who is not angry but now knows she will be having cosmetic work on her teeth for many years to come. To counteract that perhaps, I have had two ops in that same clinic and care was good but definitely no better than I have personally witnessed back in the UK.

We are grateful to the "old timers" - TU, SB and,yes, even Miki

Not sure how I should take that…it is the “even” word that worries me !

[Teamedup]

I said health workers, that means doctors, nurses, auxiliaries etc etc etc.

 

If you read my post you will see that I said that a nurse starts on around £ 17K in the UK. OK so you say 16K. I meant a nurse not a student, a student is a student and not a nurse. And probably within five/six  years or so will be on the max salary for that grade.

 

French nurses, not students on the same grade start on 1300 euros a month. (That is how it is, in France we talk in monthly salary not annual.)A french nurse takes 21 years to get up to max salary on that grade it is called anciennete. Usually the increments are every two years although up to the age of 30 can be more frequent, as in one a year.

 

If french nurses only do a 35 hour week and UK ones a 37.5 hour week well, UK nurses are earning an extra 700 euros a month for those few extra hours when they first start.

Who are poorly paid health workers................ well nurses, but that is just my opinion. And they are not the only ones.

 

GP's, like Iceni's, ours takes the time he needs with every patient. I doubt that he could get through more patients per day than he is. Luddite, well, this one has always been an IT doc, whereas the other one isn't. Good doctor, well I would say that he is. You're telling me that he should roll over and take these reforms. Your GP is getting no benefit from it and for all he is entitled to his opinion about it, those that are against are too.

 

And the top of the league, well, yes, maybe, but there is dissatisfaction out there now, since the reimbursements have gone right down and the surgeons depassements are getting very high too and the mutualists are not always reimbursing it all and people can't afford to put their contracts up or like us can't increase the contract. Add to that more people I know have been talking about medical mistakes more often than they ever used to.  Not me, I have no complaints whatsoever. Just french people (how dare they eh?). It is even in the press.

 

And me, well, I was sent back to the UK for some specific tests. There was no service that did them in France. And if I had been french, well, there is no service that does them.

 

 

[SaligoBay]

If this had happened in the UK, a call to the red tops and this would have been given print space. The hospital approached etc for an intervie etc.

Miki, you took the thoughts right out of my head!!

Daydreaming at work, I was thinking of my neighbour (French) who broke his leg a couple of years ago, shin bone snapped, sticking out of trousers.     It took a long time for the pompiers to arrive, so he spent a lot of time yelling "just let me die!".   Anyway, the pompiers don't do painkillers  and he says that the journey to hospital was indescribable.  He was left alone,  on a stretcher, that hadn't been very well secured, and the driver wasn't overly considerate.  So there was poor old neighbour in mortal agony, alone, being thrown around the back of the red van.

But here's the point.  Did he complain to anyone?  Did he threaten to sue anyone?  Did he contact his local paper?   No!  He just says "Mais c'est fini, et on n'en parle plus".

A British person would have been most indignant to be treated like that, and it would be taken as a sure sign that Britain was going to the dogs, was the pits of the universe, etc etc.

Et voilà.  That's the kind of thing you hear if you stop banging on about Britain, and actually listen to French people being French people.  Maybe ignorance is more blissful after all!! 

       

[Laotze]

This thread is hilarious! SaligoBay says in one response that one shouldnt compare UK and France then does it in every reply she makes!. I worked in the NHS - in management and complaints handling. I live in France and use the health system. Both systems have their problems but in France the money goes to the people who are providing the health care not the administrators and quangoes. The bureaucracy in the NHS is unbelievable but its only evident to those who are on the inside. In France one has to deal with the bureaucracy for reimbursements but your care is in your own hands as far as your doctors visits, tests, x- rays etc are concerned - you make your appointments and results are sent to you. In the UK if you require specialist treatment appointments are made through a cumberous system (which results in a huge amount of DNAs -Did Not Attends - which costs everyone in time and wasted resources) and results of any tests or x=rays are the property of the NHS. Here in France my doctor answers his own phone and has no staff (ditto my dentist) The money that I pay does not have to pay for administrators. In the Uk the practice that I used to attend has more non medical staff than medical. It is extremely difficult to make appointments - one needs to phone the same day and that results in the phone being engaged constantly until all the appointments have gone! The appointments are THREE MINUTES long. Very often the doctor will not get any closer to you than the other side of his desk! The first time I visited my doctor in France (for a repeat prescription) he took my blood pressure and found that it was dangerously high. I cant remember the last time I had my blood pressure taken in the UK. If the Uk did not spend so much on management in the NHS there would be more funding to pay for medical care which is escalating worldwide as technology and pharmacology advance. We will see standards drop everywhere because no country is investing sufficient in health care for increasingly aging populations. Obviously standards dropping in countries such as France which spend more on healthcare and are higher in the league tables will not be as dire as the effect this will have in UK starting from a lower baseline and spending more on administration.

[Miki]

".....This thread is hilarious!"

Well sorry but I find your post far more hilarious to be honest.

Lets go through the differences we personally have found against your findings :

" .....I worked in the NHS - in management and complaints handling. I live in France and use the health system. Both systems have their problems but in France the money goes to the people who are providing the health care not the administrators and quangoes"

Now how the heck did you come up with a blinding statement like that !! The fonctionnaires here outnumber the British equivalent by a massive amount ! Who do you think pays for the admin etc, How can you seriously think that all our money simply goes on health care ?

“The bureaucracy in the NHS is unbelievable but its only evident to those who are on the inside.”

To run what is one of the largest employers in the world (the NHS) will always need massive admin, sure it needs change, something that huge will always need tweaking but the strange thing is, why are the French looking at how the UK run their health system because they know their system is in dire straits?

So you think there are 100% arrivals here in France for appointments and ops ?

“Here in France my doctor answers his own phone and has no staff (ditto my dentist)”

Our Doctor and our Dentist have secretaries here and in 3 other places we used, they also had them.

"....The money that I pay does not have to pay for administrators."

Sorry but that is total rubbish, for a start what do you think the workers in the hugely extensive and massive CPAM offices do all day ? And that is without all the mutuelles, the part URSSAF play in all this, all the hundreds of small part time or permanent CPAM offices in towns and villages all over France etc, the list is endless

All I can say is that you spoke from your experience and when I was last home and went to a clinic with our son, he was seen in a most courteous and efficient manner. As was stated, coming from cities or large towns, can not be compared like for like with country or even with towns in France. You seem to think that ALL Doctors here can simply give you endless time and care and those in the UK want you out in under 3 minutes, well that simply makes me wonder how anyone survives in to their adult years !

It seems like your Doc in the UK was rather slap dash and to then say it in a way that it is a general thing all over the UK is to demean some seriously excellent health workers, inc Doctors, nurses etc is a little bit much.

Yes France spends more because we all pay in more, so the British retired and semi retirees, as I said earlier and so did Bill, get a real good deal out of it, as they pay no more, except for the mutuelle, simple economics.

[Ron Avery]

Miki and TU, your French health service experiences would have more weight if they were based on frequent use and not the example you roll out every time this topic comes up.

We have all gone to A&E in the UK on a Bank Holiday and waited hours and also at other times been seen very quickly when the need has arisen, that is what triage does for you, the same is true in France, just because your experience which in both cases was not life threatening gave you a bad impression of the French health service that does not make it bad across the country. You should be glad that some of us have had good experiences of the French system.

Please don't shout down those whose experience and observations are different to yours. You seem to know a lot about the UK Health service Miki for one who has been in France a few years now, it has changed a lot since you left you know!!

This was not a UK v the French system debate,it was about how poor old TU's Doc who is on the poverty line, working from a cellar with one light bulb or is that Will's Doc? And who is off shortly to the UK to join those other UK doctors who are now refusing to work week-ends or do night calls.

[Iceni]

Miki - would you be less worried if I said "odd" rather than "even" ? 

Hmmm, you 3 old timers (length of sentence rather than number of rings) seem to upset peeps by painting a picture of the France you see rather than the one some would like it to be. It isn't necessarily the France that WE see day to day but you help to keep feet on the ground.

I would have suggested that those who don't like reading it as it is should transfer their attentions to TF - but that seems to have died - too much sugary solution on the keyboard perhaps ?

John

not

[Miki]

"...Please don't shout down those whose experience and observations are different to yours. You seem to know a lot about the UK Health service Miki for one who has been in France a few years now, it has changed a lot since you left you know!!"

But surely one could say the same for the views you offer ? Are you not trying to say we are completely wrong and you are totally right ? For instance, how long have you lived in France to give your views ? If it is a few years, then can your views be also correct on the NHS ? I prefer to think that I am giving you it as we have found it, how many of our French friends also often find it all too often and how people we know from many parts of Europe have found it. As far as having to visit often to get the gist of it all, I know health workers here, do you ? I know many Frewnch people and we talk of the health fears here, do you ? They do not in anyway, all see it as you like to think it is. Sure one can often get good service but it is NOT all hunky dory within the system. How much of the problems do you read or comprehend from the journals here ? As I said, as long as you are being seen OK, then it must all be going A1 in France.....and you still didn't answer my Q's from the post earlier to your statement.

Can you explain Ron what you mean by "You seem to know a lot about the UK Health service" ? How did that get brought up ? We visit from time to time that's all, so I could never claim to be an expert, so which of my posts made you bring that little gem up ?

If you have read my posts over time, you will see I offer quite a few points from both sides, of our experience in France.

[Jude]

Ron A. I agree with you. I have been following this thread with interest. I too would like to know how long some of the posters on this forum who support the UK health system have been living outside of the UK? Too long I feel, as they don't seem to have a real picture of the way things are at all. I am relatively new to France, well, nearly a year here. So still quite well informed with how things are in the UK concerning the National Health system. Mostly very bad actually, of course if you really try hard you can always find a good example!

Standards of cleanliness have fallen hugely, it doesn't seem to count anymore if there is blood spattered onto the public telephone in A&E, or filthy toilets, or unmentionable dirt under patients beds, or an old lady wanting to go to the toilet is ignored, but finally dragged there and left by an impatient immigrant male nurse. These are just things I have encountered.

You can quote all the numbers you like re wages etc., but 'nursing' in the UK is not what it used to be.

Jude