France Tops Health Care List
The French have the best quality health care in Europe, topping a list of European Union member states plus Switzerland. Most of the new EU states are catching up to their Western neighbours. Ireland, an older member state, was located near the bottom of the list. The United Kingdom, at spot 15, suffers from overall mediocre performance, though providing good healthcare information to it’s citizens.
Sweden and the Netherlands do particularly well in this category, mainly in terms of openness and patient access to their own medical information.
On the other hand, some countries with very good health care services overall - like Germany and France - suffer from “an expert-driven attitude” to healthcare.
In France, in particular, the system is “technically efficient and quite generous”, but the authors of the report say, “slightly authoritarian”.
The same “authoritarian” trend is visible in Italy and Greece. Danes and Belgians do not get great outcomes in healthcare, unlike Finns, Swedes and Austrians - with Vienna also leading the EU on overall cancer survival.
Portugal is improving its position towards its Spanish neighbours with very good healthcare, mainly in private hands.
Both Ireland and the UK feature low on the index, with Dublin having “severe waiting list problems and less than fantastic outcomes,” while Britain - on the 15th place - is portrayed as a “mediocre overall performer” - although good on heart problems and excellent on healthcare information.
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Administrator @ June 27, 2006