Are Polish People Hypochondriacs?

his/her family may be buying a coffin.

i would say its pretty obvious why people might want to go the Doctor more, if it is free for them. Dont you have to pay in Poland? Polish men like to keep a lot of medication in the house in case of all possible ailments.

Yeah, but it's the weakness side of things I don't like. I battle on through thick and thin to do my job. Here, the snivels are enough to warrant a day off for many people. The problem is, you give them the easy option and they'll take it.

well the alternative is often worse for your colleages.. About 5 people in my office are currently battling the flu, they are struggling in to work and I have to sit next to them coughing and sneezing all day.. and guess who will be next? I would rather they stayed home.

Exactly, people harp on about passive smoking and its attendant ills but being struck down from sb else's bug is nasty. They should wear those masks that all the Asians wore when the SARS virus was on the go.

My God , thay are the worst Hypochondriacs in the world. They don't get a cold, they have snot cancer.

Another thing is regarding medical matters, they will insist that

1) Polish doctors are the best in the world

2) They (Polish in England) know more regarding medical matters than any English doctor.

3) They have a friend who went to an English doctor with broken leg/Cancer/child birth (delete as necessary) and where given just an Aspirin

4) After their mothers, a gynachologist is a woman's best friend.

AM I WRONG ??????? English Husbands of Polish Women , speak up !!
;-)
Westy

I think that the British have been brainwashed by the government into thinking that they don't really need medical attention for most ailments, as this attitude saves the NHS massive amounts of money. I hate going to the doctor myself, but I KNOW when I am really ill, and in my job as community interpreter have seen many genuinely ill people sent home with some paracetamol. By ignoring the early stages of a serious illness, the NHS may initially save some money and a bit of the doctors' time, but then complications often set in and the patient needs a lot more treatment in the long run.

And as far as antibiotics are concerned - I am surprised to learn that things like pneumonia, bronchitis, tonsilitis or inner ear infections are viral and will go away untreated. Are these illnesses unknown in the UK? Antibiotics have been invented for a reason, they should not be prescribed without good cause, but they serve a purpose! Nobody prescribes antibiotics for the common cold, not even in Poland for chrissakes.

The same goes for stuff such as smear tests, which are performed once in 3 years in the UK, while the Polish recommendation is once a year. I would rather have two tests too many than one too few.

ROFL :)

I haven’t been to the docs for a long time and the last time I was there, I received medication which was appropriate for a renal and urinary infection! Maybe they tell these people to take an aspirin because there isn't actually anything wrong with them!

I was out with a friend who is a doctor on Friday and she was soooooooooo pissssed off because of the idiots coming into the hospital (A&E) with a "cold" not "flu" a "cold" TIME WASTERS!!!


What is the cervical cancer survival rate in Poland in comparison to the UK?

Honey if you don't like it here, which it would seem you don't go back to your perfect health service in Poland - where you have to actually "bribe" someone to ensure you get your test once a year!

Believe you me, I am working very hard on this. Hopefully this is my last year in the UK. I do not regret coming here, as I have learnt a lot. But my home is elsewhere.


Never ever bribed anyone in Poland, including the medical profession.


Yeah, for example a high fever, wheezy cough, severe pain around the ribcage, dizziness... Sure, a paracetamol or two will fix that right up.


This is the flip side of the coin. Some people get so annoyed with being ignored by their GP, or not being able to get an appointment when they need it, that they prefer to turn up at A&E instead. Shouldn't the triage nurse be able to get rid of those?

There are many things I like and appreciate about the UK but the NHS is definitely not one of them.

Well, they have to delve back into voodoo economics again. Yeah, bribing still takes place, that's where some doctors make their money.

Best in the world, well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. In Japan, they have a very high level of health care. I was in very good hands to get my CAT scan there. I think too many Poles jump on bandwagons without questioning, e.g we have the best women in the world, the best health care etc etc. Eh, what inaccurate statements. They can be disproven whimsically.

A little objectivity wouldn't go amiss.

You pay them - they come to expect it. Simple as that. Don't pay. I never did.


Never said that. But I don't like being called a hypochondriac just because I happen to have had direct experience with several serious illnesses, and just might know the symptoms. I don't like being called a hypochondriac just because I think it's normal that if I do feel very unwell, the doctor should take me seriously. From my personal experience, Polish doctors as a group tend to be more interested in the patient and much more ready to examine them. A typical British GP will not touch you, look in your ears/throat, or listen to your chest unless strongly requested to. But of course, there are some lousy Polish doctors out there (personally met them), and hopefully some wonderful British ones (though I haven't had the pleasure).

I was talking more generally of hypochondriacs here, not you specifically. I see it in the youth here which is surprising.

How many countries doctors have you been to see, Magda?

I thought we were comparing Polish and British? But to make you happy, let's see... I was treated in the Czech Republic, in India (private health care, very high quality BTW), Poland, and the UK. That's about it.

I think I can generalise about PL vs UK national health care, at least to some extent, because obviously I have seen quite a number of Polish doctors in my lifetime, and I doubt there are more than several surgeries I haven't repeatedly visited as interpreter in a certain borough of east London ;-)

So, naturally, patterns tend to emerge.
Oh, and one exception: hospital doctors in the UK are typically quite the opposite of GPs. All due respect to them.

yeah we are sick of generalizations of us being hypochondriacs, our ears hurt from listening to it all the time. our stomachs ache from the nauseating constant badgering and we cant take the headache of being catagorized every day we walk the earth..

please someone take away the pain of all this generalizations.. get me a doctor!!
lol

LOL, that was clever Patty.

Aha, you've tried English doctors Magda. I guess you just assume that Scottish doctors are just the same? Or Welsh and NI for that matter?

I kept saying British here, because I frankly do not know who they are exactly. It's less of an ethnic thing, more of a mindset, I'd say. The English, or British, patient, has this "grin and bear it / stiff upper lip" attitude, which means they don't complain enough, I think (even when they're really poorly) - and the GPs take advantage of that and tell them that "it's just a virus, absolutely normal at this time of year", and rarely stop to think about other, more sinister possibilities. And a good time is had by all. ;->

Overall, this attitude to illness and health care seems quite alien to us eastern-central-whatever Continent-dwellers.

Magda, your comments are quite accurate. You are a smart woman. Many Brits are fed up with aspects of our health care system. Me, well, I challenged conventional wisdom and all my doctor could tell me was 'time up'. I am not, nor ever have been, a student of medicine but my mum had loads of books on a variety of medical issues. My doc didn't seem to want to take me on, even with the limited knowledge that I have. It was NLP, he had these notions that didn't square with mine. Maybe he was having a bad day, doctors are gey stressed.

One little caveat tho, Magda. The Scots are a complaining bunch. Sometimes, the whinier, the better. I think you'll find that far more Scots go do the doctor for this and that, trivial stuff too.

Overall, where your health is concerned, I guess it's better to whine than suffer in silence ;-)

I think the Poles and Scots have extended this beyond health ;)

I don't think that so many Poles are hypochondriac but we like going to the doctors. And talk about illnesses.:-)