French Medical System

What a day! It turns out my Mom's foot actually is fractured, and we are now rolling her around in Paris in a cast! We also got a crash course into using the French medical system.

The day started with a doctors visit from SOS Medecins to take a look at her foot. Our English speaking doctor arrived at our French apartment only 20 minutes after we called instead of the hour quoted. Once he arrived though, he took one look at her foot and went "Yeah, that looks broken". He then organized an appointment with us with an orthopedic specialist, where we would get X-Rays done and figure out what to do if we confirmed it was broken. He also suggested checking with the local medical center close by if we could get an appointment earlier.

So we ventured out to the medical center, where unfortunately they didn't have any openings until the next morning. But they took our phone number in case something opened up. We then went to the local pharmacy to request a wheelchair. Unfortunately they wouldn't get one in until 4:30, so we had to make do with some crutches we brought with us.

Our appointment with the orthopedic surgeon was at 3:50, so we took a cab to get there since there was no possible way should could have used the metro. Luckily the entry receptionist spoke English, but the one for the doctor did not, so Kara was acting as an amazing translator to explain what was going on. We also had a note from the doctor from the morning as well though too. The orthopedic surgeon took a look at her foot and agreed that it looked like it was broken. Unfortunately they had thought we already had an X-ray, and thus their X-ray person had already gone home for the day. But there were other places still open, so they called and made us an appointment since she was an urgent case. This neccessitated another cab ride a bit away (about 10 minute walk, but if you can't walk then you have to take a cab) to the radiology place. Unfortunately there was some miscommunication so we went to the wrong radiology place (again thanks to Kara for speaking French so we could figure this out!). The correct one was only up the block, but when you're with someone who can't walk, it required a cab ride. Once we got to the correct X-Ray place, she was seen promptly.

I caught a cab to get a wheelchair from the pharmacy since it was available by this point. After studying the x-rays, they said it was inconclusive, so they wanted a sonogram. So they set up a sonogram appointment back at the original place we went. This time we had a wheelchair, so it was a quick 2 minute walk. Again we were seen fairly promptly (about 15 minutes of waiting). Her sonogram showed there was a TON of blood in her foot and that her ligaments were quite tore up, but it still wasn't clear if her foot was broken. So now it was time for an MRI. Again another appointment but it was just next-door to get that done. After another about 15 minutes of waiting, she got it done, and it finally showed that she did have some fractures in her foot and would need a cast.

Thus we had to go back to the original orthopedist and get a cast. Thankfully he was staying WAY later than his normal opening hours to wait for us. It took about 20 minutes to put on the cast and then we could finally take a cab home. She'll be in the cast for 6 weeks.

We also had to pick her up some blood thinner, and that was a bit of adventure to find a pharmacy open at 10:00pm on a Friday night. The "late-night" one I usually use was already closed, and the closest one according to Google was also already closed. But at that pharmacy there was a list of late night pharmacies, so we went to that one instead. It's actually open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (Pharmacie Centrale, 52 Rue du Commerce, Paris, France), so now I know where to head in the future. We took a cab back since we didn't want to deal with a long metro trip after a VERY long day, but at only 8 euro, it was well worth it. Actually I've become quite a fan of using cabs, as they're really not that expensive relatively (relative to Paris being so freaking expensive) and can be far more convenient.

All in all it was quite a fascinating day to journey through the French medical system. We used a combination of private and public medical services (one of the most common misconceptions about European healthcare is that there is no private doctors nor insurance in a universal healthcare system. Actually there are both and they will see you just as quickly in a non-medical emergency as you would in the US. It's just that in EVERY SINGLE OTHER 1ST WORLD COUNTRY you're guaranteed medical care. We guarantee medical care only in the most ridiculous and expensive way possible by sending people to the ER when their originally very easily treatable condition blows up into a full emergency).

Even being completely uninsured the out of pocket cost was WAAAY less than being uninsured in the US, and had she been a French citizen, would have been significantly less. While no health care system can be perfect, I think it was an eye opening view into how twisted some politicians try to make socialist healthcare systems to be. But yet socialist firefighters, police, and roads are no problem.