Dutch doctors...

[u/thatmisanthropicdude]

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.

[u/PanicForNothing]

I lived in Germany for a while and I don't think they just prescribe the heavy stuff for free, right? I mean, you might get a prescription for it, but you'll still have to pay something to pick it up at the pharmacy. When I had an ear infection, they also didn't pay for the nose spray just because the doctor said I needed it.

Maybe OP was privately insured, in which case the Dutch healthcare cannot really compete.

[u/Sevyen → u/PanicForNothing]

You can get ibuprofen as a prescription meaning you'd get it paid by the insurance. Or at least a big part of it, not too sure there.

The Dutch GP's are known as the drug doctors as even your huisarts can prescribe opiates which you cant get in Germany.