Ungweliante
CH.com Veteran
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Happiness comes from personal choice \o/
Posts: 169
Helsinki, Finland
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I think both systems have their merits.
Here in Finland we have a combined system of sorts. There are:
1) Government supported clinics and hospitals. In my experience, the specialists in these hospitals tend to be quite good, but to get in you have to first go to a clinic to get an appointment to a specialist. The government clinic doctors tend to be somewhat bad. One problem is that a lot of the doctors are immigrants, which can make communication with them a bit difficult. The clinic doctors' solution to many problems is to just prescribe NSAIDs and three days off from work.
A visit to a gov. doctor costs 22e and a visit to a nurse around 10e or so (can't remember). Then if you have to stay at the hospital, it costs around 26e per day. The 22e covers everything a doctor or a specialist can do to you per visit, including e.g. major brain surgery. Lab tests and procedures like MRI and such don't cost anything. If there is no hurry, you might have to wait six months to several years to get to surgery, but emergency cases are handled immediately. Also if there is no emergency, you have to wait for weeks or even months to get a simple clinic appointment. You can go to clinics without appointments, though, to be seen by a nurse or a doctor during the same day e.g. to get sick leave from work.
2) Private clinics and hospitals. According to my experience, the doctors here tend to be somewhat good, but not always. A normal consultation at a private clinic costs around 70-100e. The national insurance, which covers every citizen of Finland, cuts around 10-20e off from that. There are also private insurances, which can cover everything done to you in any kind of medical institution, including a private clinic or a hospital. Often you're automatically insured by the place you work at.
If you want anything like lab tests, surgery, MRI, so on, it costs much more - even many thousands of euros. The results of surgeries in private hospitals and government hospitals don't really differ. You don't have to wait for long to have any kind of surgery or such at private hospitals.
I'm personally happy that we have this combined system, but quite unhappy at how underfunded it is at the moment. I'd gladly pay more taxes myself to have a well-funded government supplied medical system. What I'd mostly wish for is better trained doctors at the government clinics and a cut in the queues for advanced treatment at specialists. In my opinion, it's natural to pay more so that everyone is happier and healthier, and that's more important than anything else I could spend my tax money to.
- Best regards and PFDAN to everyone, Rosa
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