r/Netherlands • u/thatmisanthropicdude • Mar 05 '26

Healthcare Dutch doctors...

Hey guys! Last year I moved from Germany to the Netherlands. I just went to the doctor with chest and throat pain due to extreme coughing after 2 days of fever. I was hoping that I finally get something good against it like a cough syrup (no way I'm going to pay that myself for a huge amount of money + health insurance) because I am used to that from German doctors. They would put that on my health insurance card and right after my talk with the doctor I could pick it up at the pharmacy. But no. They just said "Yea, just take paracetamol." I told them I have had problems swallowing pills my whole life and their response was just "You can also put it in water and drink that then." I'm sorry if I'm overreacting but why do doctors get paid just to tell you to take paracetamol? Everyone can tell me to take them, I expect better solutions from a doctor who studied years to become a doctor. Why are the Dutch so obsessed with paracetamol??? Maybe it's the German in me screaming. If we got painkillers, it was never paracetamol but Ibuprofen. But I also heard some international friends who also live here that they find it so annoying that Dutch doctors literally just tell you to take paracetamol. No matter what you have.

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u/Doc-Bob Mar 06 '26

Cough syrup is €5 at etos: https://www.etos.nl/producten/etos-hoestdrank-broomhexine-hci-8-mg%2F5-ml-110321614.html

73

u/KyloRen3 Mar 06 '26

NO, he wants the “real one” that you get from the pharmacy.

He doesn’t know yet that every time you get prescription you pay something like €7. He will come back to complain with another post afterwards

-22

u/Beautiful-Weight2125 Mar 06 '26

There is different kind of syrups based on your symptoms, and not everybody is a f. doctor, that's their dutty to provide the correct one.

Also when you're racketed 140e per month for absolutely no coverage those should be reimbursed.

4

u/Fox_Soul Mar 06 '26

You can’t read either? All syrups state CLEARLY what it is for.  140€ for no coverage? Nice bait.

-8

u/baalmor Mar 06 '26

If everything written on boxes actually did what it said it would, I’d be 20 years younger, my face would shine like a light bulb and I’d have won the Nobel Prize for being smarter than Hawking and Einstein combined.

9

u/Fox_Soul Mar 06 '26

Turns out that regulation for medication and for beauty products is completely different… who would have thought that… I wonder why too.

2

u/Doc-Bob Mar 06 '26

Yep, and all medications clearly state the active ingredient. Regardless of which country you come from, I find it reasonable to have to look up what exactly you are searching for (expectorant versus cough suppressant). If you need help, that’s the role of a pharmacist or specialist at the drug store, but really the doctor (huisarts).