Column

Ten things you never knew about… European healthcare

1. For an ambulance in France, dial 15 to reach the SAMU — the Service d’Aide Medicale Urgente. But in Paris stay cool and dial 18 for the fire brigade, which employs a team of emergency doctors — paid for by city taxes.

2. The West German health ministry estimates that the hospital system is short by 90,000 nurses. Appalling pay and conditions mean the average nurse stays in post for three years. The 5,000 nurses among the immigrants from the East are waiting to have their qualifications recognised.

3. Dutch hospitals have been cash limited by central government since 1983. From 1984 to 1988 the health budget fell by 2% a year — and in 1988 plans were announced for a market oriented system of health care.

4. A total of 600,000 condoms are sold in the EC every year — but only 20% meet quality or safety standards, with Belgium, France and the Netherlands being the only countries to enforce standards at all. The Virgin Megastore in Dublin was recently fined £400 for selling condoms.

5. In 1988, 50% of vacant surgical posts in French hospitals could not be filled by qualified surgeons. Oddly enough, the appendectomy rate in France is five times higher than anywhere else in Europe.

6. Elsewhere in Europe, overproduction of doctors is a major problem, Italy has been 50,000 under- and unemployed doctors, and Spain has Europe’s only Association of Unemployed Doctors, with a membership of over 30,000.

7. The insurance based system of healthcare in West Germany has produced serious misuse of hospital beds, according to a recent report from Bonn. The report calculated that nearly 27 million days of unnecessary inpatient care had been provided every year, at an annual cost of DM5.4 bn (£1.93 bn).

8. Most ambulance services in Spain are provided by small private companies with no more than six or seven vehicles each. Until recently Madrid lacked a single telephone number to contact in emergencies.

9. The ratio of nurses to doctors ranges from 0.8 in Portugal to 2.5 in Belgium, with nurse shortages widespread in Europe.

10. The British NHS is all set for 1992 , having established a marketing initiative based in the North East Thames Region. NHS Overseas Enterprises is currently selling healthcare expertise to Greece and Spain, with market research underway in Italy and elsewhere.