House Call

This weekend was an unfortunate weekend in terms of health -- I, along with 2 other people in my house, got sick. In fact, on Friday night around 12:1oam one of us was so sick that we had to call a doctor. And do you know what happened? If you guessed emergency room, try again. Instead, within 15 minutes of calling the doctor, he showed up at our front door. Let me reiterate: it's 12:10AM on a FRIDAY NIGHT and we've got a doctor making house calls. What?!

He came, he gave a medication (that he brought with him), and within 20 minutes, he left, without any money changing hands. And he left the house a bit more peaceful than he'd found it. Compare that with the nightmare that would have been an ER visit at 12:10am on a Friday night. Ugh. I hear that France's healthcare system was recently ranked the best in the world (by the WHO), and after Friday night, it's looking pretty good to me.

*****I recently learned that I was wrong about the house call costing nothing. It turns out that due to a lack of health insurance (gasp!) the house call cost...90 EUROS!! That's about $120. Without insurance. My co-pays back in the states (when I was insured) were often more than that. On the other hand, when I told a Swedish friend that it cost 90 Euros, she was appalled and said that nothing should cost that much. I guess it's all about where you're coming from.*****