BA 5 infection

https://www.doctolib.fr/vaccination-covid-19/lot-et-garonne?single_shot_appointment=true&ref_visit_motive_ids[]=8192&start_date=2022-07-05

Possibly check at your Mairie (yes, I know…) as they often are up to date with such things…

47 … :tired_face: L & G… My 2nd hand experience of the medica profession in 47 was awful.

From New Year 2018 my dear friend had been getting more and more ill as the weeks went by. Her M.T. said “Its a virus. It will work itself out. Keep taking the ibups.”

Occasionally he’d say, “Let’s do another blood test - nothing there.” By the time I visited in Oct she was bedridden upstairs.

Her husband said, “Give me hand to get her into the car. We’ll go to Agen hospital.” He phoned a friend who somehow wangled an ambulance. Off we went to Agen. Of course, without a referral they would not admit her. The two of us sat in reception for 4 hrs. They did run more tests and seemed to say that there was something they could not identify - and “You can go home now.” No ambulance.

We got her into the car and she cried with pain all the way back to Fumel + 20 mins. There was no way we could get her back up the very steep stairs so we made up a bed in the sitting room.

A British retired nurse came a couple of times which was very helpful as by now F was wearing nappies.

When I returned a month later things were very much worse. At last someone booked her in to Villeneuve for a scan. Result within the hour. Bone cancer which had spread everywhere.

She died in Dec.

Her M.T. should have been roasted over a slow fire.

When people tell me how marvellous medical treatment is in FR I say, "Well, maybe that depends … "

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Sorry to hear that, we hope things will improve.

We had ours yesterday.

Two of my GP’s in UK told me that I had an abscess in my breast and gave me antiobiotics, which did not work.
I asked for it to be looked at surgically and they refused to refer me.
When I was in hospital for something else I had my consultant look at my breast and he immediately had the surgeon come to see me.
Another mammogram and an ultrasound later, no result, so she did a deep biopsy and eight months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer, fortunately very slow growing and only at Stage 1.
I had to have a mastectomy as the tumour was in the breast duct and was causing the abscess,
When I hear medical advice to go and see your GP if you think you have symptoms of breast cancer, it makes want to spit feathers!

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The residents of L & G deserve better than that awful M.T. We reckoned he was hanging on for imminent retirement - a bit like my decidedly off-hand M.T. in Torigni [50].

However, the young just-qualified Dr in nearby Condé-sur-Vire was simply incompetent. Having taken my b.p. which was above ‘normal’ but not alarmingly so, he insisted I go to ‘Urgences’ at the vast hospital at Caen immediately.

“What? Now? This minute?”
“Yes!? It’s an emergency!”

I presented his note to the staff at Emergency. They took my b.p. and almost had h.a.'s themselves with fury. "Your M.T. told you to come here? “Yes. He said it was an emergency and I was to come immediately” “We’ll have a word with this man…”

They didn’t. He’d left the clinic and was not answering his mobile.

Then - “Step aside please. Here we have real emergency - possibly a stroke. Go home”

Doctolib has big black holes. It has no entries for Torigni-s-Vire yet there is a clinic with a selection of practitioners, from 2x M.T. nurses, psychiatrist, dentist …

It has no entries for M.T.s in Vire yet the pharmacy directed me to an address where there are two.

I would advise ringing any pharmacy within a reasonable radius. I started looking on Doctolib about a week ago and it gave me our MT. I rang and he was fully booked for the following evening, and had no idea when he would do it again. Bizarre and useless. Then I found two pharmacies at 15 mins drive. One had late July for the first appt and wanted me to fill in a huge form on the internet. The other was most helpful and immediately booked us in for 2 July, tomorrow. Only a 6 day wait.

b4st4rd

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Same here in 14. Been trying to get 4th jab since became eligible in mid-June. My local pharmacy said August for next availability, MT does not do them and on Doctolib closest location with any availability is more than 90kms away and then it’s end July. :slightly_frowning_face:

Eh!?

I’m in 14, at Vire. I got a Billy Doo via the Covid app on my phone telling me I was eligible for Jab 4. I went to the pharmacy in the Clock Tower Sq on Sat 25th and they gave me RDV 15:15 today, Fri 1st July.

The procedure re ‘docamenti’ was so absurdly extensive that at one point, when a sheaf of printouts appeared, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Lovely jabista, tho …

My dear old mum, 30 years in nursing including WW2 {Burma Star], ‘The Malay Emergency’ [Korean War side-show] as theatre Sister and running an Army Families’ Heath Centre used to say,

“The Lord preserve me from the medical profession”

To which I add, “And the legal profession”.

If you can steer clear of these two, you’re in good shape.

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A university friend and immediate contemporary of mine had catastrophically incompetent drs in London, they lost her notes, didn’t tell her anything and were generally hopeless. She died of breast cancer which spread everywhere, aged 33.

Sorry that’s been your experience and that of your friends. My experience of recent healthcare has been completely different with a diagnosis and heart pacemaker op all within less than a month at Agen St Hilaire. I was operated on the day before New Year’s Eve and had a superb surgeon and all has gone very well.
Yes, of course, individual medical practitioners may be of poor quality - this happens in any profession. But please don’t tar the whole of the medical profession with the same brush.
The point I am making has nothing to do with living in Lot-et-Garonne but merely an observation that there seems to be a mis-match between what French central government is wanting to have happen and the reality on the ground re 4th vaccines. We saw the same thing happen at the beginning when we asked to have the first jabs and it was a case of “we’ll put you on the list” at our MT, then suddenly everything swung into action and our local town council was buying Moderna vaccines and pushing through 400 appointments a day over the weekends in specially set up marquees. So it can happen if there is the will - it’s not there yet, but may come.

Thanks for your sante link @Stella . I’ve found our town and it looks as if the other group practice is doing vaccinations - ours isn’t. I’ll check them out next week and if all else fails I’ve got the appointment at the end of July.

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Getting a RDV for jab 4 must be pot luck.
We bacame eligible on 29th May so started looking mid May via Doculib and got a RDV for 29th May at small pharmacie in 24.
I am posting as it seems only stories of difficulties from what I have read but there are good news out comes.

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I was in the same pharmacy that OH went to a few weeks back - at that stage I was still undecided. He asked for an appointment and they said come back in an hour. So, naively, I thought my experience today would be the same. But no, the pharmacist told me more people are now coming in for their jabs - maybe it’s like people getting their cars serviced before they go on holiday? :slight_smile:

Seems to me that it just depends on where you live. Here in the 85 / 79 borders area there is no problem at all with obtaining the 4th vaccination. Pharmacies have adequate stocks and MTs are asking patients who attend consultations for other reasons if they have had No4, and if not, are volunteering to administer it there and then.
I suppose it could be that there is a higher proportion of anti-vaxers in our area and thus there is plenty to go round for those that want it. The situation certainly does seem to be wildly different depending on where one lives.

That wasn’t the point of "The Lord preserve me … " The point is that if you do not need recourse to either the medical or legal professions, one is well set.

On the up side, when, as a small boy, I smashed my wrist to fragments and when I took the ends off my middle and index fingers, there where British medics - surgeons - doing National Service at the Q. Alex. Mili Hospital, Singapore, who put all to rights.

One of them went on to be the pioneer of liver and multiple transplants, Sir Roy Calne.

It’s a daunting fact that mistakes and incompetence in the medical profession have far more profound repercussions than any other line of business, except perhaps the military where a poor decision … for example, deciding to start the advance on 1st July 1916 [The Battle of Albert] on The Somme at 07:00 on a brilliantly sunny day.

We just rang our pharmacy where we had our third jab and they gave us an appointment.

Give us back our old doctor who has just retired please. This new young lady just doesn’t have the same manner and has gone on holiday for a month without any locum.
I am sure that if I was in trouble the practice would fit me in somewhere, but it’s not the same.

That’s certainly an issue with single practitioner practices (as indeed it was in the UK prior to Drs sharing surgeries and resources).
Ours just sticks a hastily penned notice on the outside door and the answer phone gives a message to say to get in touch with another local Dr or if an emergency to dial 15 (the French Emergency Medical Service) - a qualified Doctor is always available to determine the type of response that best fits the situation.