There are two girls from South America (I am still trying to find out from where exactly due to the accent), Mildred and Andrea, that have an information program over Dutch culture and the chapters from that program are in Youtube.com.
Unfortunately for my readers the program is in Spanish. A friend of mine shared with me the chapter No. 6 from that program with the title: “(Dutch) Healthcare or health in the normaal (normal) system”.
You can find the video at this link:
And it starts like this: Andrea is trying to hang a painting and she falls. She then tries to call the doctor and she makes a strange face. Mildred and Andrea explain at that point that when you call the doctor you get an answering machine with many options before you can actually reach the doctor’s assistant. They also mention that you can skip all that by dialing zero and then you can get direct contact to the assistant.
In the next scene they show us how it works by means of a role play. Mildred is the one trying to make an appointment and Andrea playing the role of the assistant. Mildred tries to make the appointment for the same day and Andrea says that it’s already after 10 in the morning so it’s not possible. Andrea checks the doctor’s timetable and says: “Sorry but you can make an appointment on the day after tomorrow or in a week because the doctor goes on holiday”. After hearing this Mildred says that she is calling because she is feeling really bad. Andrea asks: “what is wrong with you?” Mildred answers: “I fell, I broke something (the leg) and I am bleeding”. Andrea asks: “How much blood?” Mildred answers: “Well, I think about a liter of blood, more and less”. So Andrea answers: “Don’t worry, that is so normal, a body can loose around 4 to 5 liters per day, do not worry about it”. Then Andrea asks how deep the cut is and whether she can see the bone. Mildred answers that she can’t. Andrea replies: “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what to do. Are you alone?” Mildred answers: “yes, I am alone”. Andrea replies: “Better, because you have to go to bed, put the leg up, tide it up, and by doing that the blood stops and if you have pain, please take three times a day Paracetamol” Mildred replies: “ But I would like to make the appointment with the doctor”. Andrea replies: “No, don’t worry, this is not an emergency but if you have high fever, the pain is not bearable for three different nights, then you can make the appointment”.
Mildred concludes this part by mentioning that the assistant already made a prescription. She also mentions that maybe assistants take some courses that can allow them, by hearing the tone of your voice (aura, energy they said as a joke) what your sickness is. Both of them mention that it’s like people that read the Tarot or they probably have a magic ball to see you. They conclude this part by saying that the assistant is the first wall that you will find when trying to make a doctor’s appointment. She is the first person that you have to talk to and she has the authority to give you a prescription and everything else. She is the first impediment to see the doctor.
After this explanation, they show in the video the mechanics to make the appointment with the doctor. First you skip all the steps from the answering machine by dialing zero. Mildred starts by giving her name, birth date and address. Then she starts crying and she says: “I am calling because I am 4 days already with a terrible fever that doesn’t go down, it’s 40 degrees, I am dehydrated, and have diarrhea, its horrible! I think that happened because…” Then Andrea interrupts her and says: “You know what Madam, there’s no need for more, come immediately to see the doctor, you will go straight to the doctor when you come, and don’t forget your insurance card”.
Mildred and Andrea conclude the previous story by saying that this is what you need to do: it’s very important to say that you have fever, that you have it already for more than three days, not less. Better even if its 40 degrees and you can add that you have diarrhea to put more emotion and intensity to your pain. Ah yes, and also tell them that you already took the famous Paracetamol and that it didn’t work.
And then on the second part of the video Andrea is playing the role of the patient at the doctor’s appointment, and she is very emotional because of the sickness and you can see in the video that Mildred and Andrea capture the coldness by which the doctor greets the patient. First he interrupts the patient’s story by asking name, address, insurance number. Mildred and Andrea add: “If you already gave this information to the other…stupid woman. Why do you need to give it to the doctor again?” They advise you to prepare various papers with all that information and to hand them to the assistant and doctor because the doctor’s appointment must have a maximum of 10 minutes. On those 10 minutes you can only talk about one problem, not more.
Mildred and Andrea recommend the viewers to make the appointment by saying that there is fever because of falling from the stairs and that there is pain in the head, the shoulder, the legs, and even the ear. Just to cover all the body to allow you to speak about all other pains that you may have.
There is something else that Mildred and Andrea point out about the doctor’s appointment. They say that by listening to the symptoms the doctor looks up online what it is that you may have to be able to make a diagnose and a prescription and to see whether the medicines match each other (this is so true!!)
In the video the “doctor” (Mildred) checks Andrea and after a few breaths the “doctor” says that she doesn’t have anything. Then the doctor says: “I think that what you have is psychological. Tell me about your house situation…” At the end the doctor concludes that she fell because she is stressed due to living in the Netherlands: the husband works a lot, and she is sitting alone at home. So he prescribes her Paracetamol which will work for the diarrhea, fever, pain. (Andrea adds: For the eyes, for the wrinkles, for the cellulites…for everything!”
Mildred asks herself how the doctor can make a correct diagnose when in a doctor’s practice there is no proper equipment. Equipment such as an X ray or blood test. In order to get that you must go somewhere else where these tests will be made and the results will come around after two months or when the infection already ate the whole kidney (exaggerating a bit, but it takes long). Then once you are that sick they will say: “You didn’t come before, you allowed this to happen”.
In the next part of the video they say: “You went to the doctor on the first place because you didn’t want the sickness to advance. You didn’t go there because you had lice”.
Then they give some further advice to the viewers: “When the doctor prescribes this (Paracetamol) and you already had it and it didn’t help you need to take action. You need to pretend that you are an actress and you have to perform your role for the doctor, for the mother in law and for the Gementee (city hall) and this should be the best performance of your life!”.
They continue saying: “When you go to the general doctor (huisarts) he will tell you that he will only be able to answer two questions. So better think your questions before you go. You must have a question that is general: “Doctor, tell me what it is that I have” You can take advantage by saying: “Listen doctor, my Dutch is not very good, so I need to tell my husband how my appointment was, please write here what it is that I have”. “He will then have to give you a written diagnose. Otherwise he will say: It’s normal, the body needs to recover naturally, create defenses”.
There are another six minutes from this video talking about pregnancy but I am not going talk about it here.
I will just conclude this story by saying that Mildred and Andrea are right. Raise your hand if you haven’t experienced any frustration when you went to the doctor, tried to explain the best you could what you had and he sent you back to home with a Paracetamol? It happened to me, to my Italian neighbor, to my Maltese roommate, to my Portuguese colleague, to my English friend, etc.
If we go to the doctor, we don’t want to come back with a simple Paracetamol, we can buy that for one euro at Ethos and prescribe it for anything because Paracetamol is good for every symptoms, sicknesses and diseases according to the huisarts (general doctor).
I must say as well that sometimes a barrier for Expats is the language. My doctor is around 60 years old and his English is terrible. Before I go to an appointment I research all my symptoms in the Dutch language and practice what will I say with my Dutch boyfriend. When the doctor answers me in a way that I cannot understand then I ask him to write it. If I am really, really sick, my Dutch boyfriend has to ask for some time off from work to go with me to make sure that the doctor understands all my symptoms and that I am very sick.
Why do we need to go to these extremes when a Doctor’s appointment should be simply a way to help you to find a solution to your sickness? You are (in a way of speaking) putting your life on the hands of this person. This person has to help you to get better, to be healthy again, to be normal again. So why should we have to go and beg him to get a test done, why do we need to beg for another medicine than Paracetamol or to beg to get a referral to go to the specialist?
I believe that we have to take the advice from Mildred and Andrea and be actors and make the best performances of our lives. Maybe by this way, we can finally get the cure we are looking for and have a happy normal life.
