I’VE HAD BETTER HOLIDAYS, BUT, ON REFLECTION, MY EXPERIENCE OF THE FRENCH HEALTHCARE SYSTEM WAS REASSURINGLY WONDERFUL
experienced complications with the failed stent, I was to spend the next four days in ICU, where eventually I had two additional stents inserted.
By Sunday evening, I was finally allowed to stand up and, on the Monday, to leave hospital with an impressive medical dossier, all in French, just in time to catch my Ryanair flight back to Dublin early Tuesday morning.
I’ve had better holidays and my wife has certainly had holidays with much more fun, but, on reflection, my experience of the French healthcare system was reassuringly wonderful.
Would I, I wonder, have received this level of care if this event had happened in Edinburgh or Belfast or Dublin?
Returning home, I attempted to contact my GP as I had been told by my French cardiologist that I must speak to a local cardiologist within four weeks. I had huge difficulty making contact by phone and finally resorted to writing a letter, which resulted in a phone call the next day and an appointment.
A month later, I am still waiting to get an appointment with a cardiologist as there is a ten- week wait.
GPs across the NHS locked the surgery doors on 16 March 2020 and have, it seems, only resumed a basic service. Officially, no one is saying so; it’s an uncomfortable truth and GPs everywhere are making the case they work harder than ever. Perhaps they do.
Patient access remains constrained to the point of frustration, often manifesting in the pharmacy as abusive patients venting their ire. I am now one of those frustrated patients - as well as a frustrated pharmacist - who possibly had his heart disease exacerbated by the daily dealing with general practice over the past 18 months.
Ordering prescriptions from some surgeries is near impossible, with phone calls taking eight- ten minutes to be answered - if answered at all. This requires a dedicated phone-line in the pharmacy just to manage. In spite of work done in April 2020, most surgeries seem to have stepped
down the dedicated pharmacy telephone lines agreed back then. Patients are visiting the pharmacy asking for yet-to-arrive prescriptions, which is a burden on staff constantly searching for non-existent medicines.
If they do arrive, one or two items will be missing and we are forced to search for the prescription form to confirm. This is all very stressful - both commercially and professionally - and I had not appreciated its possible impact on my personal health.
In the UK the NHS is an institution beyond reproach. Critics risk being accused of heresy, and so we complain indirectly about lack of investment or poor management. We never, it seems, wonder why, if our beloved NHS is such a great idea, no other country has replicated it - or has plans to do so.
When I next feel the squeeze on my coronary arteries I might consider ringing Ryanair rather than 999. Vive la France!
Where, I ask, is the leadership?
WOULD I, I WONDER, HAVE RECEIVED THIS LEVEL OF CARE IF THIS EVENT HAD HAPPENED IN EDINBURGH OR BELFAST OR DUBLIN?
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