Healthcare-Germany

Bare honest witness to the world as I have experienced with it.

Germany has a universal multi-payer health care system.

The principles are:

Mandatory insurance

Financed by contributions

Solidarity

No direct payment by patients

Self-administration

I studied in Karlsruhe for 2 years from 2017 to 2019. It was complicated , I was almost unable to finish the studies due to a sudden breakdown and the stress of seeking in-time medical aid.

How easy is it to go see a doctor in Germany? In 2017 August, I was driven to the emergency room after I fainted down in the laser lab with my vision blacked-out. After 5 hours in the hospital no diagnostics found.

I went back to my place, pretended things were fine and continued my internship. That there was no diagnostic results found made me embarrassed at workplace.The nights afterwards I got severe headaches and couldn’t concentrate or see things properly. Days got more and more difficult.I needed to see eye doctors urgently. It felt as though I was left alone in the darkness with no way out. That was the origin of my panic attacks and severe insomnia.

I called every single eye clinic in the town the next day and found only one clinic with available appointment in 3 days. After an MRI brain scan still no diagnostics but the pain remained. Other physical issues out of the blue popped up — -urine symptoms, kidney infection, right hand-side body almost paralyzed….The following month I was constantly in and out of the emergency room. The doctors had no results.

At some point I decided to fly back to Taiwan for a thorough examination.

Allegedly it was my nerve breakdown out of autonomic nervous system disorder. I was prescribed mainly bromazepam and duloxetine in Taiwan, the medication was said to be ‘addictive and could be prescribed temporarily for 4–6 weeks.’

As I returned to Germany for studies, the psychiatric clinics in town were all booked up and didn’t take new patients until 3 months later. So I took the pills longer than I should have for 3 months and became addicted, thereafter never able to quit them.

After 3 months, I stepped into the psychiatrist clinic on time, an hour later I was called by the psychiatrist to describe my syndromes for 5 minutes. He quickly wrote down the prescription without making any eye contact.

Later on I was told that the psychiatrist himself had problems with women.

The German healthcare rate was affordable as I paid c.a. 100 USD per month, but I couldn’t even make an appointment in time. Imagine you are new to a town, and of course you know no doctors in town — — and the clinics all tell you that ‘sorry we don’t accept new patients because the government SHI only pay us this much. The earliest appointment would be in 6 months.’

What would you do? You go to emergencies, where you wait for 8 hours, because all the real accidents have to be dealt first, and all those who couldn’t wait until 6 months go there as well.

Now what?

My personal experience with German healthcare was not pleasant greatly due to the inaccessibility — — if you can’t go see a doctor, what’s the point of having affordable medical insurance?

Due to my limited experience with German medical clinics, I can only say that judging from the doctors amount(4.25 doctors per 1000 residents in 2020) I don’t see why a patient has to wait for so long.

Perhaps the medication-wise explained where the insurance money goes — -people pay maximum 10 Euro for prescribed medications, which is similar to Taiwan. In 2017, total health expenditures made up 11.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This means that out of 11.5% individual income goes to health-related expenses.

This explains why Germany has the shortest medicine-introduction delay — -3.5 months after a new medicine is approved by SHI, you can be prescribed and get them. The government does take moves to deal with the aging population — — the long-term care services are covered under Germany’s mandatory, statutory long-term care insurance (LTCI). I am clearly not a beneficiary of the system, but if this pays off to the elder, it’s worthy.