Nastassia Kastsiuhova broke her leg — she was riding a scooter in Warsaw when a car pulled out in front of her
After sitting for 9 hours in a hospital queue, Nastassia Kastsiuhova, a communication expert and former employee of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's Office, shared her impressions of Polish free healthcare.
The driver just shrugged
Nastassia told Nasha Niva that she broke her leg when she fell off a scooter at a crossing in Warsaw. The car driver did not look both ways on a small alley with a zebra crossing and started moving when a cyclist was approaching him at speed from one side, and Nastassia on a scooter from the other.
"The cyclist managed to brake at the last moment, I also tried, but the scooter's brakes weren't enough. To avoid hitting the car, I started braking with my foot too. As a result, I practically flew under his wheels and fell with the scooter, with my foot that I was braking with severely twisted. That's where my leg broke somewhere," Kastsiuhova describes the incident.
The driver, according to her, just shrugged, and she limped home, not yet knowing that her leg was broken.
Nastassia sought medical help only the next day.
She decided to use the benefits of ZUS (compulsory social and medical insurance contributions in Poland). As a result, she spent nine hours in the SOR (hospital emergency department) with a broken leg in a corridor crowded with various other injured people also waiting for their turn.
9 hours — is that not much?
"During this time, acquaintances wrote to me, telling me that they had waited 12, even 14 hours, and for some, the correct diagnosis was not made on the first try, and they had to return again. All this could be understood if it didn't cost so much money every month," complains Kastsiuhova, adding that she pays more and more money to ZUS every year.
"I must say that I had complaints about Belarusian state medicine, but afterwards, I must say that, overall, it's clear why everyone who can travel to Belarus goes there for examinations and dental treatment. In comparison, it's now clear that everything was quite good back home," she admits.
Nastassia concluded for herself that Polish state medicine should be reserved for exceptional cases, when expensive surgery or other large-scale procedures are needed.
"For such cases, private insurance is sufficient, and there is no desire to experiment further," she summarized.
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Comments
А чэргі ў паліклініках Еўропы - звыклая з'ява. Я ў Гішпаніі па 4-5 гадзін не раз сядзеў у адзяленні "хуткай". Прычым у платных клініках тая ж праблема. Нават калі па запісу - усё роўна будзеш сядзець гадзіну-другую.