avatarDouglas Giles, PhD

Summary

The author recounts a positive experience with the Czech Republic's nationalized healthcare system, contrasting it with the negative perception of "socialized" medicine often portrayed in the United States.

Abstract

The author's spouse required medical attention for a broken arm, leading to their first encounter with the Czech healthcare system. Despite initial apprehension about the efficiency and quality of care due to pre

If Anyone Tells You “Socialized” Medicine Is Crap …

… here’s what you tell them

A building in the complex of the Fakultní nemocnice Královské Vinohrady (Source: denik.cz)

My spouse fell and had to go to the hospital this week. I happily accompanied her to get her arm checked. A small break, nothing serious, thankfully. She’ll have a cast for five weeks, and I will need to be her second hand for awhile. Hey, for better or worse, in sickness and health. 😃

It was our first experience with a Czech hospital, or, in the Czech language, a nemocnice. It was, shall we say, an interesting experience.

Socialism!!!

Yes, egad, “socialized” medicine is “socialism.” Growing up in the US, we heard the constant drumbeat of horror stories about healthcare in the rest of the world. Yes, the whole rest of the world has the system of medicine that the US labels “socialized” and “socialism.” And, of course, anything with “socialism” in it is nasty, poor, and brutish, or so we were told.

The Czech Republic has such “socialism.” Or, more correctly stated, it has a nationalized health service, designed to serve all of the people in society — which, to be honest, is the real meaning of “socialism.”

The system is simple. You pay into the national healthcare system, just like you pay into social security, and you get healthcare. In the Czech Republic, we pay 2,722 CZK per month (about $120 a month) and we get healthcare. I’ve been out of the US for a few years, but I suspect US health insurance is a little more expensive.

Efficient?

The most often told horror story about “socialized” medicine is that it is horrifically inefficient, and healthcare is rationed. Long waits in emergency rooms, even longer waits for basic healthcare, horrifically long waits for major procedures and operations. Taking the tram to the Czech hospital, we dreaded the prospect of a crowded waiting room and a five-hour wait to be seen.

As it turned out, the only inefficiency was our ignorance of how the system works. We knew we were looking for a sign that said “urgentní přijetí,” meaning “urgent admission” — the emergency room. Problem was, two signs pointed to urgentní přijetí, one sign with yellow and green squares, one sign with red, yellow, and green squares. We are still unclear what the colors signify.

After conducting multiple requests for directions, we arrived at a hallway with about a dozen seats with a few sad looking people sitting on them. A doorway labeled “1” had a sign on it that read, in Czech, “do not knock, we can see you through the camera, and will come to you.”

We dutifully sat down and watched someone emerge from the room on the other side of the door to call in one of the sad looking people. A few minutes later, someone emerged to whisk my spouse into another room. Her wounded arm was examined, with both alacrity and kindness, and she was given a sheet of paper to present to the radiography department next door.

There, within minutes, my spouse was x-rayed, with both swiftness and Slavic courtesy (they aren’t your friend, this is business, but they are considerate). Back to the waiting room. Then back into the examination room where the bone in her arm was readjusted — ow, ow, very ow — and then to a room where a cast was applied. Then back to x-ray to make sure everything was correctly in place, followed by a quick reexamination and a Slavic polite but not exactly warm, “na shledanou,” which means “goodbye,” literally “see you again.” Perish the thought.

The whole adventure took about 90 minutes. Not so bad really. Not exactly fun, especially for my spouse. She was given a prescription for a heavy-duty pain killer, which we redeemed at the pharmacist. Thirty tablets cost only 83 CZK (about $3.70).

It Was Free

Yes. The emergency room visit was free. No charge. That’s because of that “socialized” medicine. My spouse paid her monthly payment into the national health system, so she gets healthcare. Period. All she had to do was show her health card. No questions asked, no “our hospital doesn’t take your insurance” nonsense. No hassle. No charge.

We shudder to imagine how much an emergency room visit and x-rays would have cost in the US. I doubt the waiting room visit would have been significantly shorter.

And the cost of health insurance in the US. How much per month? And you may get healthcare, maybe. Because an employee of the insurance corporation decides whether you get healthcare. There’s your “socialized” rationed medicine.

Fakultní nemocnice Královské Vinohrady Web site
Life
Medical
Society
Politics
Europe
Recommended from ReadMedium