I know it is popular for British migrants in France to knock the NHS but here in the North Herault the French system is collapsing.
In Lodeve there is a a 2 year waiting list to get a GP, our nearest hospital in Montpellier is 1.5 -3 hrs drive away depending on traffic and most people get their dental work done in Spain where it costs a third and you don’t have to wait weeks.
Like the NHS if you have serious problem the system kicks into gear but for ordinary run of the mill getting old stuff it’s a battle to get decent care.
I think all public health systems are under pressure. Aging populations, increasing and increasingly expensive treatments affect all of them and then there are specific issues country by country and region by region too.
Edit: Australia seems to have no issues however. My daughter who’s a ED doctor there was tongue in cheek complaining to me that there are too many doctors in her ED.
Not just North Hérault unfortunately. It took me more than 2 years to find a new GP (rural Puy de Dôme) after my old one retired, I was turned down by all of the local Cabinets Médicaux, and even most of those near my work. In the end, I was lucky to get shoehorned into my wife’s Cabinet Médical when she mentioned it to her GP, but otherwise even they would have turned me away. Whilst I quite like my new GP, she clearly doesn’t have the time to go into her patient’s health in depth, each appointment lasts barely 10 minutes, and even then she’s always running late. In essence, it functions in a manner similar to GP practices in the UK, and getting appointments in quick succession for urgent follow-up is becoming problematic, even with the likes of Doctolib. Case in point, needed a CT scan, local hospital said 3 weeks minimum wait, even after begging and sending them blood test results, so GP wangled an earlier one in a hospital 50 km away, but now she’s away for 3 weeks, so no one to discuss the results with who knows my background. Such disjointed experiences are what we hear of with our relatives in the UK, so clearly there is a bit of a postcode lottery going on here too. It isn’t just circumstance. There was a time when the system did function correctly, pretty much everywhere, but too many pressures (both legislative and financial) are slowly but surely bringing the system to it’s knees.
Edit for anecdotal observation: whilst talking to my next door neighbour the other week, he told me that it also took him more than 2 years to find a GP. He also mentioned that he’d rung one of the local surgeries and been basically told to take a running jump and had the phone slammed down on him. There must be a lot of pressure on admin staff if it has come to that, even with the gruffest of receptionists.
A few years ago I would have said “move to a city”. But things are going downhill fast here too. In Strasbourg we can see our specialists pretty easily but that’s only because we’re already on their books.
A colleague whose daughter is a doctor and left Berlin because of poor working conditions to move back to France told me there’s a scheme in France to attract GPs to rural areas. Seemingly they don’t start paying tax until they’re earning over €100k. I don’t know the details (is that €100k per household?) or for how long this scheme has been in place.
We nearly had a new MT in our area but they got poached by another region. Basically, they made a more attractive offer. My MT, lovely lady as she is, is new school. She’s basically a sorting office; writes repeat prescriptions and referrals. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be these days. She handles the first cut (unfortunate pun). does what she can and passes the rest on down whatever channel she deems appropriate. She does minimal hours (I get the impression she doesn’t want to be a MT) but I’m grateful just to have a foot in the door. So many don’t.
I love it when there’s a particular remplaçant on duty. He’s old school, used to be head of a local medical centre and is very much ‘been there, done that’. He syringed my ear once, I was so grateful. My MT would have referred me on. I mentioned to him that GPs in the UK can’t do that now and he told me they can’t in France either, but it sorted me out pronto. Otherwise I’d have been waiting a couple more weeks to see an (whatever an ear doctor’s called)
I’m not too far away in Aude, and I have to say that here we have had no issues with getting a doctor, dentist etc. We’ve even moved dentist and doctors without any issues. And now the next village to us has since then got a new dentist and doctors surgery … we travel further though not far. OH had a knee replacement and the surgeon offered her a date only 5 weeks after consultation and she had both inpatient and outpatient intensive physio, sorted out by the hospital. We’ve had nothing but good experiences of the French health services. Maybe we’re very lucky where we are but if we are then I’m glad of it.
We first started with our MT over 20 years ago. Before we had a shiny new medical centre built, we used to visit his house for consultations. The waiting room was his front room which, unlike my experience of UK waiting rooms where you avoided eye contact with anyone, patients treated it as a social opportunity to catch up on gossip while waiting their turn.
On one occasion, the doctor put his head round the door and said he had an emergency call and would be back in an hour or two. Everybody in the waiting room decamped to the bar across the road. After an hour or so, the doctor came into the bar and announced his return whereupon everyone went back to the official waiting room and carried on in the queue at the place they left off.