Comment by williamdclt
8 days ago
> suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here
That's really not my experience. In fact, almost everyone is surprised when I suggest that despite its many problems, the NHS does better for the people than most modern countries' health systems.
I am certainly surprised by that suggestion.
No one I know who has lived in France or Germany or any developed country other than the US thinks the NHS is better than the systems in those countries.
I've heard from Spanish friends living in the UK that the NHS is so bad, they fly back to Spain for medical checks and even to see the dentist. That's mind blowing.
Having lived in the UK for 25 years, and being from Norway, which has one of the consistently top ranked (though extremely costly compared to the NHS) healthcare systems, I have not had any problems relying on the NHS for 25 years for most things.
There are times I opt for private services for speed, because I can afford to, but I could also afford private health insurance (which is cheap in the UK), and haven't felt the need to.
That said, dental is a weak spot of the NHS, with too few dentists offering NHS services, and there's a perceived quality difference in that the NHS treatments have fee caps that mean they will often not include the best aesthetic options. For dental I do tend to go private (but dental for adults is also excluded in quite a few other "universal" healthcare systems - like Norway; don't know about Spain)
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I have heard the exact same thing. The reason given being a lack of confidence in whoever they were dealing with. For many people, first contact with the NHS is the 111 call centre which really is akin to a health lottery.
Living in the UK but being from another EU country, I definitely see that happening. However, a lot of times it is just due to habits, wrongly-placed mistrust, or not being well settled-in yet because, at the end of the day, there are eg. better GPs and worse GPs everywhere in the world, but if you are still "new" to the country you simply do not know which ones are which, so you prefer to go to the ones you know already.
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Not just Spanish, Polish people do the same.
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I know of Polish people who do this too.
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If it were only France or Germany, it wouldn't be as bad. I returned to Poland after almost 15 years in the UK, and despite our health service being an absolute shambles, I still prefer it to the NHS.
I have heard some scary things about NHS from friends. Some mothers of Greek origin preferred to give birth back in Greece. I don't know if cultural differences played any role. A humble N=4-5 from a doctor