Julefrokost...

[rimturse]

..or Christmas Lunch for the non-Scandinavians. Yes, it's too late - but then again: is it EVER too late? Anyway Sissel, Tobias, Mihi and Dennis will be coming over tomorrow. Sissel is bringing the dessert, C is making the punch - I'm doing the frikadeller (meat-balls), potato salad and tuna mousse. Everything else; marinated herring, salmon, bread, cheese, meat; I bought ready made.

If you're reading this, Amy: We will miss you. Who's going to wear magenta and drink the dill snaps? :)

Today the postman came with the MRI scans that I had taken June last year. I don't know why the hospital sent them after all this time, but it gave me the opportunity to look at them again. It's not too bad; one definite lesion and two shadows. On the other hand it is strange to think that I am actually looking at my brain and that it's damaged.

Pisces painting is 1/3 finished, need to do some reviews, write, clean the house and prepare the food for tomorrow. Also have to wrap the presents for the dice-parcel game. I wonder what the guys are bringing; Dennis will probably bring a couple of cans of beer covered in gift-wrap...haha.

Cats are sleeping.

Comments

[tank-boy.livejournal.com]

your X-ray images, MRI scans etc. belong to you anyway. If they were made in a private hospital or institute or at a doctor's, they belong to you and they will send it to you. If they were made in a public hospital, they will keep it but still have to give them out on request.

The reason why you get them in most cases is because of the law: they have to keep them archived for 10 years. If they give it to you, they don't have to store them.

x-ray images

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Well, that explains it. I'm so used to the Danish health care system where everything is taken care of for you (and of course it's all free).

The good thing about the Swiss system is the lack of waiting lists. Everything goes really fast and the doctors and specialists are very efficient. The bad thing is the lack of organization regarding patient information, follow ups and billing.

Re: x-ray images

[tank-boy.livejournal.com]

people are quite sensitive about patient information here. There's a certain danger that centralized or shared personal health data could lead to discrimination with insurances, employment etc. But actually, it doesn't change much because you will give out all relevant data anyway if you change insurance, pension, employer...

Swiss health system is good, but very expensive. A lot of the costs are caused by unecessary and unefficient treatment and diagnosis. And this of course is somehow related to the lack of organisation you mentioned. Because the health insurance is paying almost everything, doctors are interested in doing unecessary or redundant diagnosis because with each blood test, x-ray and even phone conversation, they earn money. If the data would be stored in one place and the insurance wouldn't pay an examination if the same has been done before, they would save money.

You have also mentioned the lack of waiting lists in Swiss healthcare. This is another reason for the high costs. Because of the oversupply of medical services, there is no delay and people tend to go to the doctor because of things they wouldn't in other countries. A different story is dental health care in Switzerland: There is no (mandatory) insurance covering it. It's expensive and people have to pay it themselves. With dental health, prevention works much better, because it has a direct influence on people's money.

But despite health insurance costs are increasingly burdening individual and cantonal budgets, we still extend the services. Some people complain... but because decisions upon those things are made in a democratic way, we have the health system we want and deserve. As long as there are more doctors every year (Switzerland has the highest density of doctors/people worldwide), we automatically will have increasing costs because all of them want to earn money and (strange enough) our system is made to adapt to supply, not demand. :)

I'm quite happy with Swiss health care system, but actually, I can't even say so because I'm so very lucky that I'm healthy and haven't been sick or been to a doctor even once for more than ten years now. Of course, the health insurance love me for that. :) But if I should encounter any health problems, I'm glad to know that I will get good treatment. We are really privileged in Switzerland.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Lots of things I didn't know there, but it all makes perfect sense. Yes, the health care and medicine is expensive here. I also used to be ridiculously healthy before I moved here, but because of my diagnosis, I've suddenly spent hundreds of CHF on my health.

I believe Denmark has a lack of doctors. Also, you'd think that a country with free health-service would have a higher health cost pr. inhabitant, but in fact it isn't so, probably because the doctors catch on to illnesses at earlier stages.