Thursday, June 12, 2008

French Health Care

The BBC website is reporting that David Cameron was interrupted during his speech today by a man extolling the virtues of the French health service. Coincidentally, I was talking to a Montgomeryshire friend who has just had direct personal experience of it. He and his wife own a house in France, and were heading south on a French train when he began suffering chest pains. It was about 9.00 in the morning. Luckily, there was a doctor on the train, who thought it might be a heart attack. This is what my friend told me happened next.

When the train pulled into the next station, there was an ambulance waiting, which whisked him off to hospital. As soon as he arrived he underwent an investigative angiogram, which confirmed that he was suffering a heart attack. The surgeon told him he would need a heart stent fitted to unblock one of his arteries. Now, we know a bit about these stents in Wales, because a few of our politicians have had them implanted (if that's the right word) over the last year or so. Anyway, the surgeon just implanted it there and then. My friend came round in the recovery room at about mid-day, approximately three hours after his first chest pains. Today, he seemed fully recovered to me. I just wondered whether such a thing was possible within the British NHS.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

so are you as a conservative extolling the very socialist make up of the french economic systm Glyn.....you can't compare one aspet of a society like that?

having said that my uncle lives in france and has had a imilair experience.

GWILYM EUROS ROBERTS said...

Hei Glyn, mwynhau dy flog yn fawr iawn, wedi rhoi linc ato o fy mlog i, gobeithio dy fod yn cadw'n iawn ac mewn iechyd a hwyliau da.

Cofion gorau atat,

Gwil

Glyn Davies said...

anon - I don't know much about the French health service - but I thought my friend's experience worth blogging on. I had no idea such a rapid service was possible.

Gwilym Euros - Diolch. Mae iechyd yn cant y cant.

Anonymous said...

Hmm! I wonder why Rhodri Morgan didn't have to wait the 6 to 8 weeks for his non-urgent stent?

Anonymous said...

The French already pay 10% more tax than us at current rates and much of this is to cover the significantly greater expenditure on healthcare. They have to maintain large amounts of spare capacity to respond so quickly ( 70% bed occupancy for example against our 90%). If this is the level of public service you wish to promote Glyn, I think you will need to review your political allegiance, given tax reductions are now back at the heart of Tory policy.