No cure for the common cold? Try telling the French

The last time the World Health Organisation published a league table of the world’s best healthcare systems, France came top. That this was in 2000, and that WHO no longer compiles this type of ranking should not dissuade you from the fact that you are in pretty safe hands when living in France (the UK having pulled in at a respectable 18th, ahead of Germany, Belgium and Sweden – impressively – and way ahead of the US in 37th place). Without getting too bogged down in the parameters of such a study, I can only give some personal examples of the ways in which the part-private, part-public French system compares with the much-embattled (and probably not nearly as bad as everyone says it is) UK National Health System.

The large social security contributions made by employees (around 20 per cent of income, taken at source) and their employers (roughly a further 60 per cent) have helped finance a system that covers most – but not all – of the cost of healthcare through a reimbursement system: sometimes involving paperwork, but fairly benign by the standards of French bureaucracy. The other part in theory must be covered by the patient, but many, like me, opt to buy additional insurance, known as a ‘Mutuelle’, which is offered by different organisations and varies in cost. Normally paid monthly, mine – with the MGEN – costs around 30 euros a month but ensures total cover in all almost all cases. A more comprehensive overview of the system can be found here and here.

In my experience it is normally easy to see a doctor in France, and the quality of care is high. In the UK I had been labouring under the impression that there was no cure for a common cold, nor should I consider bothering a doctor about one. You would think the opposite in France, where my mucoid spluttering has been greeted by furrowed brows and fistfuls of prescriptions rather than an old fashioned British kick up the arse. While Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko‘ laid on its praise for French healthcare (and, ironically, the NHS) a little bit thick, French healthcare can seem to a Brit a bit like one of those dumb Carlsberg adverts where British lads are greeted with a world catering to their every whim: French healthcare, probably the best healthcare system in the world!

On one occasion I had a routine hearing check up (more on this in a moment) while at the tale end of an unrelated sniffly cold that I had stoically endured with typical stiff upper lip. I left the doctor’s cabinet with prescriptions for a number of cold-relieving products I hadn’t solicited and having had to refuse to be signed off work for a few days. Theoretically, this kind of medical approach is being discouraged by the authorities, who are trying to claw back a sizable deficit. This may be difficult. It seems that France’s cosy healthcare industry, with its stethoscope-happy physicians and sleek pharmacies in every district, is supported by a sickly nation who have grown used to easy access to specialists. Referral to specialists from a GP is now obligatory for maximum reimbursement.

Virulent continental viruses unknown to Britain’s craggy island shores seem endemic to France. Dreaded gastro epidemics – a stomach flu (short for gastroentérite not Gastronomic – which makes the British penchant for naming French eateries ‘Gastro’ and fondness for ‘Gastro Pubs’ potentially amusing to the French) – does its rounds periodically. As a teacher I am often confronted with miserably sick students: it is apparently one of the professions most exposed to germs, which makes a day in class the microbiological equivalent of licking a toilet bowl, or a computer keyboard – whichever is considered the greater breeding ground for germs these days. While I’ve been to several gastro pubs in England, I’ve not yet had a gastro (touch wood, before hastily washing your hands).

My most significant experience of French healthcare came when I required surgery on a perforated eardrum that would not heal. I had had an operation to repair the eardrum when I was 12, but the problem had reoccurred, making me highly susceptible to ear infections. Once or twice a year I would require antibiotics and a very difficult period at work while I struggled through symptoms ranging from roaring tinnitus, deafness and a nauseating kind of dizziness or vertigo that made it hard to even walk steadily. In England I was told repeatedly that the procedure (tympanoplasty) to fix this was considered non-essential surgery and that they were not confident a second procedure would cure me of the problem. Although they didn’t refuse me the surgery, they said that they would put me on a list and that it could be two or more years before my number came up – as in a lottery I suppose – and thus I would have no control over the date of the operation.

In France the doctors were far more encouraging: I was expedited from my GP to a local Ear Nose & Throat specialist, and from the specialist to the surgeon himself, with whom I was able to decide on a date, diaries open on the desk like two old alumni at a yacht club lunch. I chose a date that was convenient for me personally and professionally, and the cost of the procedure was entirely covered by my Mutuelle. The operation took place at the spanking new Clinique des Cèdres, a Mutuelle Clinic in Echirolles, just outside Grenoble, where I was able to choose a private room (as opposed to a worst-case-scenario twin room – no wards at the Cèdres) for an additional fee. I was attended to by a retinue of nurses whose bedside manner varied from kindly (imagine Juilette Binoch in the English Patient) to bossy and severe (more Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). No matter, I was visited every day of my subsequent stay at the clinic by the surgeon, and was given a month’s congé de maladie in which to recover. The only frightening moment was immediately prior to the operation itself when, having been wheeled down to the operating theatre, I was asked who my surgeon was, and which ear it was that needed repairing. ‘Don’t you know?’, I panicked to myself, worrying that a mispronunciation on my (already tranquilised) part could have seen me sent into the wrong theatre. My fears were unfounded, my operation was a success, and my faith in the French healthcare system now deeply ingrained, however amusing I find it to be prescribed several drugs for a common cold. Your comments and experiences, as always, are welcome.

Related Posts:

• ‘La grossesse’ in Grenoble – crossing the (little purple) line
• Mind, body and ‘chemins du bien-être’ – shiatsu in Grenoble
• Don’t stress: it’s France!
• ‘La grossesse’ in Grenoble – part 3, “tapering off”
• ‘La grossesse’ in Grenoble – part 2, “in full training”