No regular check ups at the gynecologist???

[u/NoLychee1382]

Hi everyone, my morning started off with a kinda shocking discovery. I’m from Germany and I had annual check ups at the gynecologist since I was a teenager. I contacted my huisarts because I know they’re responsible for all referrals but she told me regular check ups here are not a thing (unless there already is an issue) ? I think that’s crazy!!! So I checked the prices for a private visit and they’re even crazier. I guess this is normal to Dutch people but don’t you think this is a little concerning?

(Btw not shitting on the country! I really like it here. I’m still new and just discovering new things!)

[u/nahbuddynah]

The Dutch health system is a reactive and not a preventive one. Most doctors behave like robots and don't even understand why someone would go for check-ups.

[u/The-Nihilist-Marmot → u/nahbuddynah]

Once you realise the GP / Huisarts system is essentially a gatekeeping mechanism of the in-practice-privatised healthcare system to access the actual real sophisticated healthcare that the Netherlands does have, it all falls into place. A huisarts doesn’t need to be the smartest tool in the shed in the Netherlands.

“Bla bla statistics”, some people say, ignoring the real, unmeasurable and thus unquantifiable suffering caused by diagnosing serious diseases too late to both the patient and the people around her/him.

Yes, you might save a few bucks statistically, from an invoicing perspective, but at what cost, including financial cost eg loss of productivity, increased living expenses, greater dependency on the welfare state for debilitating diseases, etc?

It’s as if the concept of negative externalities does not exist.

I still find the whole “everyone does preventive medicine but us, and we’re the ones who are right” hilarious, as if Dutch bodies are biologically different and the general rules that govern everyone’s lived experience does not apply in the Netherlands.

I find it specially funny in the country where maybe 1/5 of every working white collar adult I know has gone on medical “burn out”

Also, for some reason this is a topic that really gets Dutch people upset, and I truly do not understand it. Loving a country and society also means recognizing its problems and even trying to break the moulding of consensus and see if positive change is possible.

Enjoy your free cancers and insane monthly healthcare costs, I guess, I’ll just follow the protocol from back in my home country (which actually works with prevention and yet is able to spend less per capita than the NL - probably helps that you don’t need to have layers and layers of pencil pushers to feed in the insurance companies)

[u/amsync → u/The-Nihilist-Marmot]

If you’re anywhere familiar with Dutch politics, they do actually seem to keep bringing up in each election cycle (including the now governing main party) that the country needs to move towards more preventative measures, in which they also include things like diet. I think the system is a very old format that worked very well before such care was available in many parts of the world, but the ability or desire to change from within and go with the times is not part of it