My first experience of French healthcare!

After feeling ill most of the weekend, Monday was certainly interesting.... I dragged myself into work for 4 hours on Monday morning (mainly because taking a day off means far too much paperwork!), meaning I got on a bus at 6.55am and was already halfway through a lesson before I saw the sun coming up! I battled on through until midi, then collapsed onto the bus home. It was decided that I needed to go to the doctors surgery. The nearest doctor is in the next town down the coast, Chatelaillon-Plage... and this is what got me - every afternoon, it's like British A&E, a total free-for-all, turn up when you feel like it and wait in line for see the doctor without-an-appointment sort of thing! So we got there, there were about 8 old people sat around waiting, who all jumped up when the doctor came out to see the next person in the queue. What did amuse me was that one man tried to convince the man sat next to him, who was in front of him turn-wise, that his illness was worse than his and that 'would he be so kind as to let him go first as it's really quite urgent'.... oh the French do make me laugh, even trying to cut corners in the doctors!

We arrived at about 4pm and waited, whilst watching terrible "surgery TV", until 7pm to see a bloody doctor. In addition to this, there was no receptionist, just benches to sit on and 2 doors that led to examination rooms. The doctor was lovely and helped me fill out all my documents (as I don't have my Carte Vitale yet, the obligatory card to show for social security reimboursements - it gets delivered to you around 3 months after first signing up to the Sécu, ridiculous! So I have paper documents in the mean time) and gave me a prescription. The only problem being that pharmacies in France close at 7pm, some at 7.30pm if you're lucky - so my French dad came to pick me up, and drove me to Salles-sur-Mer, about 10km away, to the nearest late night pharmacy! Then, at the pharmacy, they were shocked and stupified when I said I didn't have my Carte Vitale... so it took about 20 minutes to find all the stuff, input codes into the system etc etc etc....

But all in all, it was a very thorough (albeit long and painful) process... I had to pay 22 EUROS to see the doctor but that will be fully reimboursed thanks to the Sécu and my top-up mutuelle insurance. But now I know what Hélene meant in the briefing talks of "writing the thing in the thing and the putting the thing in the thing, then posting the things to the thing and waiting for the people to sign the thing and then getting the thing back"....

I'm now taking the medication like a good girl and am feeling a lot better. We were due to go to the 2nd Induction day in Poitiers yesterday, but conveniently the SNCF decided to strike! There were suitable replacement buses and a few trains still running, but we decided to adopt the French attitude and declare that "c'est pas la peine!"... I've got school tomorrow, then Friday off - Surgeres has a big sports day, hence no lessons - so instead i'm going to meet up with my first French exchange partner who lives close to La Rochelle; it'll be nearly 7 years since we saw each other, she's now married and has a baby! Strange, huh? Then a weekend of not doing a lot and then home time.... I love being a teacher sometimes!