So 2 doctor visits + 1 ER visit in the past two months in Bordeaux. Totally gained a different perspective on our BC public health care system. I appreciate my family doctor more than ever. Selfishly wishing I could just zoom her 😅 If BC ever moves away from the family doctor care towards the care center system, that would be the wrong direction to go based on my experience. Sadly I hear that's where we're headed. And the long wait for the urgent care in BC...is no wait at all compared to the French ER. I don't recall spending more than 4 hours at the ER with any of our kiddos all these years.
Well, I spent 8 hours at the ER at the Bordeaux public hospital the other night. The waiting area was a typical ER waiting room, maybe a bit smaller than the Canadian ones but felt like a party room. You could barely find a seat. The stretchers were lining up all the way outside the hospital. At any given time, there were 3 stretches inside. Each stretcher was accompanied by 3 firemen. Do the math, that's 9 firemen + 3 stretchers + 15 other patients like me in a closed area, not well ventilated. The firemen were chatting up a storm with each other and with the patients. None of them wore a mask. One stretcher was a man in his 20s, in athletic shorts. His right knee was red and swollen. Looked way too farmilar 😬 I overheard him saying "football" to the man next to him. I symphasize. Wish him a smooth recovery!
The nurse who registered me spoke perfect English with North American accent told me not to worry about the fees. It doesn't matter who pays, I wouldn't have to pay a cent, he said. Welcome to the French public health care. But money was far on my mind. Five and a half hours after the registration, I finally saw the doctor. He didn't speak much English and he apologied for that. I was thinking why would you speak a foreign language in your own country? No need to apologize. Thanks to Google Translate, he and I understood each other perfectly. He ordered ECG and x-ray to check my heart and lungs and explained to me why. The ECG and x-ray took no time at all, super quick, but the wait to get the result was another 2+ hours. A total of 8 hours later, I was cleared and sent home with a copy of my complete test results. However, the pain in my chest was unexplained. I went home in the same condition if not worse.
My landlord drove me to the hospital and stayed with me the entire time despite my repeated plea for her to go home. I got to know her quite a bit during the 8 hours 🤣 She's such a sweet lady, well traveled. Been to Montreal and skied Tremblant. Quebec French sounded really funny to her.😂 She couldn't understand why fresh fruits and veggies were so expensive in Canada. She's also been to Taiwan a couple of times, tried every type of street food. Her fav Chinese food is dumpling. I made a batch just for her. Noah wrapped half of these yummy looking dumplings. Not bad eh?
The moral of the story, if you have to get sick in a foreign country, make sure you have a nice landlord 😁 I feel very fortunate!
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