Editha

It costs the NHS around a quarter of a million to train a doctor, regardless of your 'self-financing'.

You seem a little lacking in insight.

Stinkypup

And you seem to have gone ever so slightly off topic

scrubbedexpat091

Depends where you are, and how long a wait list is for a doctor, and what meds you are. Walk In clinics wont always refill medications if the doctor has not seen you before, and in some places it can take months to get into a GP depending on if any are accepting patients or not.

Its not all that simple in some area's of Canada to get a prescription filled. I can only get mine filled at the walk in for example if my GP is working, the other GP's who work there won't refill prescriptions of unknown patients, as in ones they have never seen before.

I could very easily see someone coming over from another country with no doctor at all, needed 3-6 months of medications to tide them over until they can get into a GP here.

Tirytory

Walk in clinics would refill a prescription especially if it was a medication that shouldn't be stopped...heart medication. Granted you might not get your own doctor for a while but again that is rather a given knowing the country one is moving to. I haven't got a dr yet in either. Drop in for me too.

Tirytory

I'm interested in your "insightful" knowledge of medicine in the UK. I can only guess that you must be a doctor or have someone in the family that is a doctor. I would never for a minute assume you were getting all your information from a newspaper such as The Daily Fail or other such government fed tripe.

Now I really am interested in your answers, how long do you feel would be an appropriate time to spend in the NHS before they had "paid back" 10 yrs, 20 yrs, 30 yrs, 40 yrs?

Of course, and I'm sure you already know this, that the longer you work in the NHS the greater the risk of suicide (medicine has very high suicide rates) or alcoholism- very high rates of that too. I probably don't need to explain that this is due to stress, ever increasing government targets, longer working hrs, decreased pay, patients expectations and their "rights".... I could go on but it gets a bit boring.

What about other government funded jobs? How long do they need to stay in a country before their dues are paid?

I can only assume that you think medicine along with other allied professions should be vocational, that it is for the love of the job that we do it and all these other issues are not important.

I could give you a further detailed breakdown of how many hrs he would spend in work, how little time he was at home, how many on calls he had to do in a week, how many extra out of hours shifts he had to do a week to break even, when the government has changed targets again meaning the partnership had less money coming in and that his salary was dropping again, or that as he was leaving the welsh assembly were campaigning to make GP's work longer, open every evening and weekend to please the voting public. Interesting they didn't have any money to fund it, they just wanted to impose it on them, meaning less money again and even less time at home.

You might also be interested to know that a lot of GP's at retirement age in the UK and that funnily enough there are not many doctors who want to go into GP practices anymore, because of said working conditions, certainly nobody wants to be a partner, just a salaried doctor without any stress. So when the government starts looking around for doctors to fill the gap, who do you'll think be the first to complain that their standard of care is poor, that they can't get to see their doctor, that waiting times are rising etc etc....

I guess you feel that as a family we were as you said "selfish" to leave and that we should just suck it up....maybe you would have liked to explained that to my children who said they didn't see Daddy enough. I would like to go home but I know I can't ask him to go back to that.

It's you that lacks insight.

scrubbedexpat091

Not all walk in clinics are that easy going, when I had no GP, I found it incredibly hard to get my medications refilled at walk in clinics. Some would do it as a 1 time thing until I found a GP, and some just said no outright, of course all dependent on the doctor on duty. (I have first hand experience how hard it can be to get meds filled at walk in clinics.)

BristolUK

Somehow I missed this thread.

That's certainly how I found it when we moved from Quebec to NB. Somewhere between a non starter and a noncommittal "premiums would be higher and likely exclusions would apply" but I recall reading several BE posters saying they get coverage for pre-existing conditions.

It seems fine as far as hospitals go, it's just the outside of hospital stuff. Although that varies hugely by province.
I'm sure I read Ontario allows diabetics $100 a month for testing/injecting supplies, regardless of income.

Most provinces have some kind of "catastrophic drug" program that limits your drugs bills to around 5% of net income. A lot of people view this as low income assistance but it really needn't be. There's an awful lot of fairly common drugs that will be more than that for a lot of people.

I discovered just the other day that I live in the only province that doesn't licence advanced paramedics to carry drugs like morphine or those that help in heart attack situations or with seizures; the patients having to wait until they get to ER. Shocking.

On the other hand, my wife's doctor sent her for a "walk-in" x-ray yesterday.

It was noticeably busier than usual but it took a couple of minutes to register. The clerk was really apologetic as she said it might be as much as an hour before being called. Wow, such a hardship.

Half an hour later we left the building with it all done. And that's when busy.

And that's absolutely normal from our experience.

My step daughter has had it once in the 4 or 5 years she's worked for the same company. They have to hit a certain number of hours and the company appears to do all it can to prevent staff achieving those hours.

Tirytory

Sorry! My husbands clinics does walk in, and I just can't imagine him turning away someone that needs meds filled. It nevertheless doesn't change the fact that there is still only so much you should take before you leave.

nativenewyorker

I am a diabetic and the walk-in clinics wouldn't even see me never mind give me a prescription!

Tirytory

So what do you do then? Hospital specialist?

Siouxie

It's admirable that your husband wouldn't turn away someone that needs medication, however, Jsmth has lived in several Provinces and has experienced this first hand - as have many other people. I know several people personally who have been refused (including relatives) and been told to either find a Family GP or else go to the emergency care. You are new to Canada and with respect, making blanket statements and insinuating that everyone can get medication easily just by going to a walk-in clinic or getting a GP is a little naive.

Perhaps you don't realise how hard it is to find a doctor willing to take on new patients and be able to have a 'regular' GP?

As an example, my former husband's GP retired - it took him several years to find another one and only got signed up because I asked my Panel Physician if they were taking on new patients. She said that officially she wasn't but that she would add both of us if we couldn't find another GP. I should add that my f/h has hypertension and a heart condition and none of the walk-in clinics would prescribe for him because they didn't have his medical history. The lack of medication for several years damaged his heart and he now has even bigger problems.

I have to say that the level of care 'our' doctor has given has been fantastic, she has no hesitation on expediting treatment and getting specialists involved. There were quite a few times that we didn't have 'benefits' and so could ill afford medications. She made a point of supplying both of us from her stock of supplies at no cost.

My GP in the UK regularly gave me 6 months worth of medication (whilst I was still living there) and repeat prescriptions.

I understand that 'some' people take advantage of the NHS but tarring everyone with the same brush is a little unfair.

JonboyE

I think it does. If you see someone fall over in the steet you help them up because:

a) they need help
b) you are in a position to give it, and
c) it is the right thing to do.

bats

I agree with the concept but when it was set up I don't think that travel insurance, and indeed travel, was the norm. I think it's time to change free treatment. Treatment for infectious disease is also free as it protects the population.

Emergency treatment is only free if given in AE, once admitted the patient has to pay. The NHS never seemed to be very good at chasing this up though.

iaink

How does internal billing work in the NHS anyway? CLearly US and Cdn hospitals have always been used to the idea of pay to play and have well organised billing departments in place to ensure provincial/private insurers or individuals get a bill.

Im guessing that that infrastructure isnt there in the NHS as it does not operate in the same insurance culture? Isnt there a danger its would cost more to set up and maintain that sort of administration than it is likely to collect from the occasional user from outside the NHS umbrella?

bats

Exactly, there is an entire cost consuming layer in Canada involved in claiming moneys. The Canadian system is insurance based where the government(s) is the insurer. Every examination, test, day of hospital stay is claimed from OHIP or equivalent. It isn't quite as precise as private medicine in the UK where each item used is billed but it isn't an NHS parallel system.
The NHS used to have bursar's offices who administered fee claims. You can pay extra for a private room in the NHS if one is available. There are a few other charges too but not an inherent part of the booking in system as is here.