How Socialized Medicine Almost Killed Me

[argentus]

It looks like it wasn't socialized medicine that nearly killed but bad doctors, and those are everywhere.

One example I witnessed with my mother, some 40 years ago:
As some might know, Portugal's health system is owned and managed by the government, so we pay very little for it. My mother used to to the doctor after she had a mysterious anaemia for which doctors could not find a source (she stayed 3 months in school hospital, being studied from all sides and getting blood transfusions until they gave up, gave her cortisone and sent her home when the symptoms disappeared), but she wasn't happy with the doctor.
The doctor's solution? Pay for a private consultation and I will give you more attention.
The result? He still was a bad doctor (even his daughters said so) and my mother probably didn't get the right care.
11 years later a similar thing happened with my father, who had diabetes and should have been properly taken care of had an infection on the left foot that another doctor said was clearly a diabetic foot and should have been noticed by the doctor. The doctor also told my sister that there wasn't a thing that could be done for my father, as he was "old", so, basically, he should just wait until the prostate cancer (that should have been detected by the doctor) kill him, as it eventually did.

A few years latter we changed doctor and that doctor eventually retired and we got changed to a different doctor.
This new doctor prescribes blood analysis or ultrasound at least once a year to see if my prostate is OK (it is) and scolds me when my diabetes gets worse (as it does when I do fewer of my walks). A few years ago she was prescribing several tests until she said that she had reached the limit and couldn't prescribe more tests for me without a specific reason.

PS: many people in Portugal prefer to use private doctors/hospitals/clinics, but private doesn't mean better. My elder sister pays a small amount every month to the Red Cross, so we can have the possibility of home visits and other things. One time, she needed it, so she called a Red Cross doctor. When I saw the doctor's name I got curious, as it sounded like a Mozambican name, and went looking for it online. I found her (she is really from Mozambique), and I also found her name on a list of doctors that had applied to be part of national health care system. In her case, the results of her exam were below the minimum classification to be able to enter, so, apparently, she went to the Red Cross.

PPS: regarding side effects and medication interference, we should always read the paper that comes with the medication (I suppose that also happens in other countries). When we changed to this last doctor, she decided to change all my asthma and diabetes medication, so after I read all the five or six medication's papers and seeing that it looked like some could interfere with others or may not be the right ones for my case, I went to the trouble to schedule an appointment with the doctor to ask her about it.
She didn't like it a first, as she said that she had a lot of years of experience and she wanted the best for me, to which I answered that all the medications say that if we have doubts we should contact the pharmacist or the doctor, and that was what I was doing. Then she explained why she had chosen those medications and the possible problems did not apply to my case because my diabetes was not that bad (I only take two pills each day, far from bad).

Your family has been through the mill.  I suppose there is no perfect medical system.   My Darlin' and me have to pay more than $2300/month USD for health insurance.   It will go up again this year, and that will be it for us.   Unsustainable.

You touch on something very important.   Research.  Personal research.   We must always advocate for ourselves as you have done.   I know several elders that not only don't know what meds they take, but also not what they are for.   I can't imagine being that distant from my own health care.

[chivo]

This is like that all over Europe and the UK, that's why I tell people to think twice what you put inside your body... You will regret the moment your life is in hands of unmotivated, under capacitated, not trained in knowing what health is staff/workers.

[ArMaP]

My father-in-law waited over half a year just for x-rays while he was in excruciating pain , wasn't able to wait any longer and had to turn to the private sector.  And it turned out he had herniated discs. No one would help him out, he just had to 'wait his turn.' And then he was referred back to the public care for a long time yet again.

I suppose it depends on where we live. Where I live, Almada, we have to wait around 2 months for an X-Ray (unless we are in the emergency at the hospital), but it's not the national health system that does the X-Rays, they are private clinics that have an agreement with the national health system.

And people in Portugal are often, literally dying in corridors while waiting for treatment.
There is an obvious and protracted push for private healthcare, as there are not enough people working and paying into it, as are using it, and furthermore, doctors are incentivised to practise privately for more money. 
People are assigned one family doctor under the socialised system, and this person often doesn't care and is overworked and can switch practises whenever, so you often have one new doctor each year.

That's partially true.
Yes, we have a lack of personnel, specially out of the big cities.
No, we have enough people working and paying into it, in the last two years, the payments all workers must do to the Social Security were more than the Social Security expenses. But, on the other hand, the annual taxes paid by the people got a small reduction, although the number of people having enough income to have to file the tax return increased. The taxes paid by the companies had an increase, so I suppose the government is investing in the wrong areas, as usual...

Either the government needs to make people work more to pay more into the system, stop giving immigrants free and often preferential treatment or they just need to give up and switch to full private.

The increase of payments to the Social Security was a result of the increase in immigrants working legally.
And no, immigrants do not have more rights than Portuguese citizens or preferential treatment, unless those are personal choices of those that are following whatever processes the immigrants are applying to.

PS: I work in a software company, but it has a sister company, an accounting company, and they have around 50 immigrants clients working for Uber Eats or Glovo, so I have some knowledge of their situation. Besides those 50, they also have around 10 that have their own companies, so those have slightly different problems and possible solutions.

Edited to add that a work colleague has an insurance plan, so she goes to a private clinic/hospital for all her and her family's problems, but in the last occasions she had to go there she noticed that the public health system problems are now beginning to appear on the private sector, with too man people waiting for an appointment, resulting in long waits, so it looks like the private sector has been free of problems because of a smaller user base.

[ArMaP]

This is like that all over Europe and the UK, that's why I tell people to think twice what you put inside your body... You will regret the moment your life is in hands of unmotivated, under capacitated, not trained in knowing what health is staff/workers.

You will regret it too if your life is in the hands of a doctor that only thinks about getting more money, so he tries to attend the biggest number possible of patients, so he can get a fat payment at the end of the month (they usually have a fixed monthly payment and specific amounts for specific interventions, so if they do nothing they get the fixed amount, if the interventions amount to more than that they receive that. I know that because that accounting company also has three doctors working in a private hospital and they all get paid that way).

And the problem is not lack of training, they all study in the same schools.

[Vulture]

... more than $2300/month USD for health insurance.

I've been there, done that.  There is no perfect health care, unfortunately.  The American health care system is out of touch and corrupt to the core.  My uncle was at the hospital after getting his hips crushed in an accident in Florida.  They wanted him to use a ventilator, he declined so they put it out in the hallway.  Yet they still charged his insurance about 1000 dollars a day for it standing unsued out in the hall.  He was there for about 2 months if not more in traction.

We need an overhaul of the insurance system here.  It's basically highway robbery from every front.  The hospital robs the insurance company, and the insurance company robs us.

[chivo]

@ArMaP

I didn't imply that private greedy medical staff is better, I know they get trained in the same subjects. If you can afford and want it go for it, at least you are going to get service faster on the paid than on the "socialized", shit service or not it will be faster, at least you have your payment receipt to waive around when things are not the way you would like them to be.

Conventional allopathic medicine which uses pharmaceutical industry drugs is the way things are done everywhere generally and that is not conducive to health this is what I'm saying, so good luck when you don't have a clue what's wrong with you and you are dependent on drug pushers, very expensive ones or free. 

And this is the state of things where I live, in Norway and in the UK, I know those things from fact not theory. Rest of Europe cannot be so much different.

***By the way the quote button was not working for me, that's why the @ at the beginning

[SurferSoul]

Without socialised health care, then proper decent healthcare would only be available to the rich. Sure you could get insurance but that’s just something else to pay out and many people can barely make ends meat as it is. I have heard of people who ended up bankrupt and destitute after having major surgery and treatments in America where insurance has found some get out clause or something. 

Then there is the option of taking private healthcare if you can afford to in countries that do have socialised healthcare, so I don’t see the issue. 
Here in the UK the NHS is having many issues, but this is because of poor management at the upper levels and private companies clawing their way in to profit from what they see as a massive cash cow. We have this bad situation where surgeries and doctors have all been privatised yet the government (tax payer foots the bill) it should either be totally privatised with competition to ensure a fair market or totally socialised without private companies seeking to make profits from public health. 

Anyway the NHS saved my life and there is no way I would have been able to afford the hugely expensive immunotherapy drugs if it was private. Through out the experience of having grade 4 stage 4 kidney cancer I have felt in good hands with the NHS. It has been a massive wake up call however as some doctors should not even be in the profession. Also holistic health is ignored altogether. I began my own regimen of practices and supplements I could do to help myself when this all started and I feel it has helped immensely, yet health professionals say this is just mumbo jumbo. 

I could go on about this but it deserves a thread on it’s own really as it’s an issue with both private and socialised healthcare currently.

[SurferSoul]

Edited to add that a work colleague has an insurance plan, so she goes to a private clinic/hospital for all her and her family's problems, but in the last occasions she had to go there she noticed that the public health system problems are now beginning to appear on the private sector, with too man people waiting for an appointment, resulting in long waits, so it looks like the private sector has been free of problems because of a smaller user base.

Here in the UK we had more hospital beds in the 1980’s than we do now. Can you believe that? I need to fact check that statement myself because it just seems nuts, but what I don’t have to fact check is how successive governments have run down the NHS despite campaigning in promising to protect it. 
Then we have the boomer generation all experiencing health issues of one sort or another, god knows how many illegal and legal immigrants adding pressure to the system. Then we have the general ill health of the population, there appears to be more obese people than ever before, more cancer than ever before and more mental health issues than ever before. I think many of the physical health problems are mostly due to glyphosate sprayed on grains and other crops, it’s practically unavoidable these days so much has been sprayed.

[UltraBudgie]

Here in the UK we had more hospital beds in the 1980’s than we do now. Can you believe that? I need to fact check that statement myself because it just seems nuts, but what I don’t have to fact check is how successive governments have run down the NHS despite campaigning in promising to protect it. 
Then we have the boomer generation all experiencing health issues of one sort or another, god knows how many illegal and legal immigrants adding pressure to the system. Then we have the general ill health of the population, there appears to be more obese people than ever before, more cancer than ever before and more mental health issues than ever before. I think many of the physical health problems are mostly due to glyphosate sprayed on grains and other crops, it’s practically unavoidable these days so much has been sprayed.

You know, I thought glyphosate was banned in the UK, until I was watching Clarkson's Farm and Caleb was talking about spraying their crops with glypho before harvesting. So, are exports from the UK banned in the EU? 'Cause they don't allow it, as far as I understand.

Edit: To answer my own question, no they're not, as the EU doesn't ban glyphosate, although some member countries do. Thankfully, Italy bans its pre-harvest use (it makes the plants go crazy dying and the grain swells a bit), which seems to be where most of the contamination comes from.

[SurferSoul]

Don’t know but it was banned from public products off the shelf stuff, but farmers still use it and are encouraged to use it. Mostly to dry out crops but also in conjunction with GMO crops where the crop has resistance to the toxin but the surrounding weeds don’t. 
If the supposed ban in the EU is anything like in the UK it means little. I think it was likely exposure to this stuff as I work in horticulture that caused my cancer.