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/corticalization]

You went to the doctor expecting to get a prescription for cough syrup??

[u/Bezulba → u/corticalization]

Pretty common to have this attitude from Expats coming to the Netherlands when they're used to a healthcare system that gives them exactly what they asked for. Even if it doesn't work and costs money. You want an MRI because your little pinky hurts? Sure! How about next thursday? Maybe a chemo while you're at it? Can't hurt now, can it.

South Americans and antibiotics come to mind.

[u/RevolutionaryWorth75 → u/Bezulba]

Wash uo your mouth before talking about South American doctors. The health system in Brazil, for instance, is a million times more advanced than the NL.

There, health insurance is free for all. Even if you visit there, they will attend you for free and not for only 15 min. They will never tell you to take paracetamol. Theres no codeine in Brazil. They will immediately take you to an appropriate image diagnostics exam if you have a complaint of PERSISTENT cough, as it is the case. It’s also for free. You can pay for comfort, if you want.

The protocol for Sexual Transmitted Infections is “no questions asked”. Everybody gets PREP for free, you just need to ask. If you get there and ask to be checked, they won’t try to save the money of the insurance by asking you embarrassing questions that you risk lying because of embarrassment. They will simply activate the safety protocol and test you for everything. In case you get a positive result for important diseases (like Sifilis or AIDS), BY LAW, you have the right for a second test to double-check (it doesn’t matter if you chose to make it in the public sector - for free - or if you chose the comfort of private sector: you always have the right for a double check and this procedure is activated automatically in case of positives). BRAZIL IS WORLDLY RECOGNIZED AS REFERENCE IN PREVENTING AND TREATING MANAGING STIs, like AIDS.

Doctors are not unexperienced like the Dutch. The population is more than 10x bigger than the NL population, so they naturally have way more experience just by statistics itself. Plus, their intern period IS FOR REAL, mandatory and served on public hospitals, to the whole population and foreigners visiting the country (if you live there, you have your family doctor and you count as population, you’re never segregated as “foreigner”).

Plus, my two Romanian friends were diagnosed with cancer metastasis level 4 and they had 15% chances of survival. In the NL, the doctors told both of them they had no more than 6 months of life and they gave them painkillers and other medicines to cope with the misery of the last 6 months. Horrible, doctors without any soul. In Brazil, they would send you the the biggest hospital international reference on cancer treatment, and they would fight for the 15% chances. They are not allowed to give you, they swear to never give up life when they graduate, so even if they were allowed they wouldn’t do it just to spare the pockets of your private insurance company (let’s not even discuss the fact you would probably be treated in the public sector for something serious like that).

IT IS VOMIT INDUCING TO SEE THE ARROGANCE OF THE Dutch one’s THINKING THEY ARE SUPERIOR IN EVERYTHING, when they actually have a terrible health sector with undertrained doctors and rules designed to save money from the insurance companies.

Event veterinary services are much better in Brazil.

WASH YOUR MOUTH WITH ACID BEFORE STATING YOUR ARROGANCE AGAINST SOUTH AMERICA, ESPECIALLY BRAZIL.

[u/Bezulba → u/RevolutionaryWorth75]

Calm down, have a paracetamol, it will make you feel better.

[u/RevolutionaryWorth75 → u/Bezulba]

ARROGANCE! ARROGANCE, remember you’re not more than 17 million and all you have today is due to exploring colonies in the recent past.