French Emergency Services -feel free to chat and add Info

Many of us have experience of A&E in France… and other hospital stuff… sometimes it turns onto a mixed thread…

the following link talks about French A&E and all sorts…

More recently, a neighbour called pompiers but point blank told them not to bother if they were intending to take her to Perigueux…(she would rather die at home :upside_down_face:)… they finally agreed to the local A&E… where she received swift care, stayed in one of their allocated single rooms for 24 hours… then back home… phew…

I should explain she had spent 10 hours on a trolley, one night, at Perigueux A&E… amidst crowded and bloody but organized chaos… (I was there for the first 7 hours until relief arrived to let me go home to bed).

I had to go to Urgence in Macon one summer and there were trollies with old folks on each side of the corridors.

Common all over the NHS, along with extra patients squeezed into wards on beds or trolleys but not in a designated bed space.

It’s awful for the patients and awful for the staff and is likely to get worse if the UK government continues to try to squeeze the NHS budget as a percentage of GDP.

Interesting that it is happening in France and, I’m afraid, makes me want to say “so tell me again how the French health service is better than the NHS” - in short all healthcare services are under increasing pressure from an ever more elderly and frail population.

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Paul… in our own situation… it is arising because ambulances are linked to a certain hospital… and even the pompiers are under pressure NOT to go out of their department …

It makes no sense to me… to insist on a trip of 1 hour when the nearest A&E and full hospital… is 20 mins away…“over the border” :upside_down_face:
Locally, unless life-threatening… the mood is… jump in and we’ll dash to *** get seen quicker… and, as it happens, in better conditions. :slightly_smiling_face: and no need to involve the ambulance service… they’ve got enough to do… :thinking:

It’s not that different in the UK - if you are close to an administrative border you might well get taken to a hospital which is not the closest.

Usually the best hospital is the one properly equipped to look after you - if that’s the one an hour away it is the one an hour away.

Trouble is… in the main… the patient has no say… unless travelling by private transport.

So many times now OH has been taken to Perigueux…grrr… even though I explain that “over the border” is nearest and they “know him well, medically speaking”… and they are better than Perigueux… (I can assure you on that point).

My dil’s father died 3 years ago on a hospital trolley in Haverfordwest. He lived a 3 minute drive away. He was terminally ill and had a routine appt to have fluid drained from his chest as it impeded his breathing. When he arrived the ward was full and he asked his family to take him back home but the doctors wanted him to stay although they did nothing for 7 hours until he died. His son rang my dil 150 miles away so she could say goodbye after the doctors finally realised he was about to die.
A terrible ending after a painful battle.

UK: At our local surgery…OH (aged 38) presented all the symptoms of some sort of heart trouble. Our Doc told us that a letter would be sent to the cardiologue/hospital (whoever) asking for an appointment…and we should await some news/contact.

Now fast forward to France…

OH is giving me cause for concern…off to see our MT . MT wanted him seen by a Specialist without delay…

While we sat in his surgery, our MT phoned the Specialist, chatted with the Receptionist who said…we are about to close… agh…

Our MT explained the urgency of the situation… and it was arranged: I had to drive OH straight to the Specialist who would wait for our arrival…

MT told the Receptionist… they’ll be there in about 40 minutes… and we were… phew…

What did the specialist do?

This, to be fair, can be individual doctors. . 27 years ago my son had grommets and got a nasty ear infection. I took him to our gp who got the receptionist to ring our consultant and he was seen at 3pm. The consultant was also very sorry that the hospital pharmacy would not allow him to issue a prescription to my son for the antibiotics he needed, budget constraints, and we had to get the prescription made up at the chemist.

(This was Friday evening and MT did not want to delay further investigation/treatment until Monday)…

MT was confident of his diagnosis and gave OH an injection before we left the Surgery…

The Specialist gave him a thorough checkover with the doppler… found 2 deep-vein thrombosis plus a further 2 superficial ones around his left knee…

Two options… Nurse to come daily (incl Sat and Sun) to continue injections … or oral medication we could administer ourselves.

Our Specialist opted for the oral medication, on prescription plus “stockings” immediately. The local night pharmacy provided the medication (with highly explicit description of everything that could possibly go wrong)… and one pair of stockings. Very apologetic that they were only in one shade… normally there is a better selection :joy::rofl:

We’ll need to order the other pairs… what colours would Monsieur prefer ?? They can be here tomorrow… :rofl::laughing:

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Thanks to the speed of diagnosis and treatment… OH has been given the all clear… on that front at least… :hugs: and he no longer needs his very-fashionable stockings :laughing:

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I’m glad you got your son seen swiftly… waiting is so hard on the sanity…

The consultant sounds a gem.

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Dial 112 from any phone for any emergency service - multilingual operators available.

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Thanks Simon…I’ve just added it into my phone…x

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Periguex is my nearest, I live near Brantôme. Bit of a worry.

I am so sorry for that.
It is totally appalling.

OK, so well done to the MT for making the diagnosis and the radiologist (?) for staying behind while you got there.

But, given that the MT was confident enough in his diagnosis (or cautious enough, at any rate) to have started treatment before you left, then getting to someone with a Doppler ultrasound could have waited until Monday, as long as arrangements were made to continue treatment over the weekend, obviously - the clot won’t disappear in 72 hours.

There are good and bad anecdotes on both sides of the channel. However I think that it’s more telling to look at, for example, the staff resource so the population per GP, per nurse, per specialist. Then equipment, eg number of MRI scanners per head of population. And then things like breast cancer survival rates. Last time I looked France was better than England on all of those.

Where England excels it is world class, but sadly that’s very patchy. And my gut feeling is that if I were mentally disabled I would prefer to be in England, as some of the things I’ve encountered here are very, very old fashioned.