蜜芽传媒

Hi,

As I see we have the same problems. Officially all the healthcare is free but normally we have to pay for it. Of course we have the national hospitals, usual outpatient clinics, but If you want treatment yourself you must first of all to have the patience and then a rich wallet.... Lately lacked medicines for cancer, patients must wait for therapy, where everybody knows that time is the most dangerous enemy..., we live in the middle of Europe and such a story, horror! Our lovely politicians have better duties for example brawling about Smolensk's catastrophe.. Ordinary people have a one question "What with living beings".... Parliamentarians should to focus on attention for the mental clinics, I think that some of them in the nearest future can take advantage of their help.

Best regards,
Maja

Hi, Nick,

Thank you for your third long write-up. I love it the most. This few days, I kept open 蜜芽传媒 LE鈥檚 webpage to see that did you, Neil and Graciela who have post new blogs. Because I couldn鈥檛 wait to read and give a comment, even I write it with my below-standard English.
I like your write-up because everyone must concern about it. Healthcare is one of the important subjects in our lives. Who have never get sick? Who have never get a health problem?
Here is the same, Hong Kong was one of the Britain鈥檚 colonies until 1997, the land was handed over back to China on 1st October this year. I鈥檓 not sure but maybe it is one of the reasons why Hong Kong鈥檚 healthcare system has been deteriorated. At least, one thing that I鈥檓 sure is most of my friends and my colleagues they wish they could live back in the period of Britain鈥檚 colony. ha!! Who don鈥檛 want to have better lives?
I can tell that Hong Kong鈥檚 healthcare system also is terrible. Our government hospitals (GHs) there lack of a huge of doctors and nurses because most of the government hospital鈥檚 doctors and nurse they fled to private hospitals where they can get more salaries and less workloads. Now who are working in GHs where only have two kinds of professions. One are who just graduated in universities they need more experience so they are no choice to work in GHs and the others are senior doctors they鈥檙e waiting for a pension after they retired in few years. Turning out the result is that who working in GHs they both lost their enthusiastic in serving their patients. A recent healthcare statistic鈥檚 just been released. It said each doctor has to take care of near 200 patients in GH, meanwhile, each nurse also has to serve almost 30 patients. The numbers are extremely higher than the international standard.
Let me talk about my experience of medical treatment. A few months ago, I went to have an adventure race in a mountain, then I got slippery in a valley and fell down getting a cut on my knee. After then, I rushed to a GH and waited almost 3 hours to get 5 stitches fixing. It鈥檚 a nightmare for me. I don鈥檛 want to go to any GH again so I bought a healthcare insurance. That guarantees I can get a treatment in private hospital as soon as possible when I need it next time.
Thanks for your blog once again. Hope my wordy write-up won鈥檛 make you yawn. Look forward to reading your next blog.

Blessings,
Sai-fung (Hong Kong)

Hello Nick!
I must say I am quite impressed by your good -sized and detailed writing about Healthcare in your country and realized that we Azerbaijanis are not the only unpappy bunch in this matter.Private clinics in our country equipped with the latest medical innovations and employed by experienced doctors.You have to pay and get the test results and service in no time,but not everybody can afford this,because you have to have rich pocket.Government Hospitals are officially free,on papers,but actually you have to pay to see a doctor,maybe a little less than you would have payed in private clinics.So nothing is free.Yoy pay doctors,nurses and even cleaners if you stay in.Medicines aren't free,even cotton,syringes,thats used in hospitals, are bought by patients themselves.Doctors are paid around 150-450$ per month,which don't cover their basic needs,so they are not to blame.When you are ill ,you are worried more about the money than your health.People who live below standard suffer from this hugely and seek doctor's help when they are nearly "'dead".
We are told that it is about to change soon and we going to have insurance based healthcare,which no one really understand how.To be honest ,I am a bit pessimistic about this so-called change,but hope that I will be proved wrong.
All the best ,Nick
Seva from Azerbaijan

Dear Nick

It seems to be a thorny issue again to discuss about health care systems in our international forum.
As a practising general practitioner and paediatrician I am personally involved in this topic. Reading Nick鈥檚 essay a lot of details seem very familiar to me and we work in a quite similar structure - maybe this can be originated from our common communist roots.
As I see those parts of health care systems which are financed by governments work more or less inadequately all over the world; neither the patients nor the health care staff are fully contented. Private sector is more likely to provide its function well but only few people can afford it.
One of the main problems I see is that great majority of our adult population tend to be inactive to take care of its own health. Waiting for resolutions from others or a nursing system is more comfortable. Improving our own coping mechanisms is one of the hardest tasks in the adulthood. In my daily medical practise I often meet patients whose problems are deeply ensue from their false presence in life in consequence of series of wrong decisions they have already made. Their reactions to any kind of physical disorders are exaggerated and give us a big challenge to examine and treat them correctly.
Sorry for mentioning of some little philosophical鈥搇ike sides of the problem but I don鈥檛 want to repeat the content of the comments above in which are correctly said about the problems of low salaries and lack of appreciation that can be experienced from time to time at all levels of health providers.

I don鈥檛 know the right way how to rebuilt the national health care systems but I aim to do my best each case whenever someone asks for help.

Have a nice day for all of you.

Krisztina from Hungary

Hi Maja,

thanks for your opinion! I see that healthcare is a complicated issue just about everywhere :)

Best,
Nick

Hello Sai-fung and thanks for your detailed comment!

Well, your problems mostly resemble ours: groups that work in GH-s are really similar, and your experience in our GH with your wound might well have been more or less the same.

Still, I hear stories like that even from people living in super-mega-developed countries. Free medicine - lines, lack of specialists, etc. Paid medicine - comfort, but for large money, and a lot of medics are really focused not on treatments, but on selling you additional services even if you don`t need them...

Wish you never visit doctors again (at their workplaces, at least)!

P.S. You don`t need to worry about your English level - people with "below average" could barely write that sort of well-formed comment. As long as you see notice your problems, it`s fine. Just never stop improving! I`d suggest that you use something like "my English level is constantly improving" - that would be inspiring, optimistic and true :)

Hi seva,

thanks for your comments and please accept my best wishes to you and your country. You`ll be hosting Eurovision soon, the thing that a lot of people in our country are crazy about :)

But to the point - yes, that`s a pity you have nothing for free, really. I believe it might well be in Belarus, though of course money make healthcare mechanism wheels turn faster.

Talking about insurance-based medicine, I also do not see it as the ultimate solution. We need to have really strong insurance traditions to implement it right, but I don`t think that post-USSR countries managed to fully adopt it.

I`m also pessimistic on the issue (because I could see it from both sides) and don`t feel that there are improvements that might solve everything. But, to my mind, state has to pump more money into healthcare, along with implementing stricter control, discouraging patients from "parasitism", providing fair basis for private companies to grow and introducing more "officially paid" services.

Best,
Nick

Hi Krisztina,

thanks for your comment! It makes us look at the problem from two different sides.

First, you`re perfectly correct on that: it`s only you who could take proper care of you and make you healthy, not medics. We have also a bunch of problems with it. For our people, one of the most devastating problems is alcohol addiction :( And not a lot of people prefer to lead the healthy way of life.

Second, you`re ABSOLUTELY right about "doing the best you can". It all starts from us, from you, from me. If I do my work responsively, 100%, than it pays off someday. If people from the state who control healthcare, if patients and doctors would behave responsibly and do 100% of what they could, all the "ecosystem" would gradually become better.

Let`s hope for the better!

Best, Nick

Hi.
I am newbie on the blog, and in my very first comment I'd like to touch a different aspect of the health care system.
I can share the opinion with a group of experts saying, that we can not talk about 鈥� free 鈥� healthcare.
The healthcare system needs a number of resources working on a successful way e.g. human staff equipments, buildings, drugs etc. The tests, diagnoses, treatments all expensive elements of the network, and somebody have to pay the bill.
In one case the government collects taxes and distributes the money, in other cases the insurance associations negotiate with the providers, or the patients pay on a direct way. The yearly budget is always a result of a long negotiation process. No matter which method is used, at the and of the chain the patients pay.
The key question is, whether the providers are able to spend our money on a cost-effective way or not. I strongly believe, that the well educated and deeply motivated management could be the most important factor.
The write-up starts with the question: How does healthcare affect the health?
In my opinion the health status is influenced by different factors e.g. way of living, prevention, environment, geographical area, social network and number of others. The healthcare itself is playing a role not more than 30-40 % among the factors.
Thank you for reading.
Best wishes
Imre0382 from Hungary

Nick, thanks for your encouragement. Hope to learn more from you all. Also, I hope my English level is constantly improving indeed. ha!! Thanks!!

Hello,
I'd like to tell about healthcare system in Spain. It's very similar to the belorusian system. The basic service is free. Ambulance service and emergencyes are free. Hospitals are full of patients (sometimes whithotu emergencyes cases). The diference is that doctors and nurses are well payed. How I could know, they recive about 2000Euro. But in private hospital they recive more. That is the problem. The health is converted in economy problem.
But in spite of all problems with the payment, the public system in Spain, I think, is the best in Europe. There is better hi-tech equipment, better specialistes than in private hospitals. If you are an immigrant, you can recive the treatment free at all. Even dental service. People from others countries come to Spain to make some operation. It's named "medical tourism". Because of the low prices. It could be the price of the operation or the insurance. Of course, it is not that the operation really costs.
It seems "communism".
But these system has also drawback. It can be called to waste money. The money, wich came from ours (taxpayers) pockets. Because of these, I agree whith fine for falls ambulance calls, whit payment of total invocie in case of help to drunk (it is logical, each one must to be responsable for it self) for example. Also it could be given some advantages to the people who don't smoke or do sport regulary. All of these is aplicated to public health service.
Nowaday in hard financial times, unofortunately, a lot of free services will be cut off. But if you have a seriosly health problems, doctors save you.
The spain insurance health service works also. I had my baby in a privat hospital whit the cesarean. It costed me no money at the moment. All of these: the operation, care service, cleaning, the room in the hospital are included in my insurance. Yes, of course I pay about 50 euro pro month. But it nothing comparing whit the real amount of these services.

Hi,
It's great to know the healthcare system in Belarus. I think the healthcare system in your country have to change.
I am from Taiwan. In my country, everyone have a health insurance. People must pay to government for the health insurance. Therefore, it cost cheap when we need a medical treatment. However, people go to doctor frequently even if they aren't really sick. That is really wasting medical treatments.

The American healthcare system is great, not perfect, but we don't live in a vacuum and compared to other countries it's the best and I hope it stays that way.

Best
Brian

The UK private healthcare system is getting bigger every year with patients not willing to wait for the NHS waiting lists, so patients are either paying out of their own pocket or using private health insurance to pay for treatments. There are however a number of doctors and specialists that are working for the NHS and privately [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

And for additional information about my private research which can be found here: