Saturday 6 October 2012

Using French healthcare

One of the cats (Pernod) was in the house when he shouldn't have been, he objected to being swooped on for throwing out by biting Doug's hand (he hasn't changed character or anything and turned in to a biter generally it was a one off with the suprise). It was very painful at the time and then became swollen and more painful over a couple of days. I dragged Doug off to A&E in Bagnère de Bigorre on Friday as it seemed to still be getting worse not better. I called the doctor first but we couldn't get an appointment. We did hum and haw for a bit about whether it was bad enough to go and spend 10 hours waiting in A&E to see someone. Then I read the internet a bit, and it seems a lot of cat bites can become infected with nasty results. So we set of with kindles and water and food for the dog (who was going to wait in the car).

However, the experience was totally different to expected and we emerged about 30 minutes later with two types of antibiotics and a neatly bandaged arm. They had tested to make sure Doug was ok for tetanus as well. In France you pay for a percentage of treatment and prescription, the total we had to pay came to 18 EUR. Well worth it considering that the pain is now nearly gone although there is still a lot of swelling and Doug's hand looks chubby like a giant babies.

There is talk of them closing the A&E department in Bagnère which would mean we would need to drive to Tarbes for such assistance. We really hope it does not happen as we were very impressed with the efficiency of help.

People protesting about A&E closure

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