So grateful we are not in the UK for this

[soglad]

We moved from UK to Italy a year and a half ago. On Monday this week my husband felt unwell and his smart watch told him to go see the doctor immediately. He suspected he had atrial fibrillation (AF), as he had it 5 years ago.

He booked to see his GP at 5pm on Tuesday. She diagnosed him with AF and immediately referred him to a specialist hospital.

He was triaged into the hospital the same day at 8pm. At 9pm they started a procedure to correct the heartbeat chemically. It did not work.

At 9am this morning they performed a cardioversion, which restored his normal heart rhythm. They are discharging him today.

So total time from the very first appointment to successful treatment -- 16 hours. Free state healthcare.

This is in a country which a lot of people in the UK describe as poor, corrupt, slow and backwards.

All his doctors spoke good English and even nurses did their best to google translate everything for him.

By contrast, my last experience of helping mum get NHS treatment after a road traffic accident which required urgent operation left me in tears -- weeks and weeks of delays / cancellations meant she almost missed the window of opportunity for surgery as bones started to heal incorrectly. I'm so glad I didn't go through this again.

Clearly great state healthcare is possible, even in a country with a much lower GDP per capita than the UK. Why aren't we doing something?

It's a bit strange that you say "we" about a country and a health service you no longer live in and use. Or maybe that's just me. People will have different experiences. When I lived in England, the NHS saved my eyesight. Besides, cardiac problems are likely to be a priority wherever.

Glad your husband is OK.

We've not yet been charged anything so can't comment, perhaps urgent care is free. In theory I agree with having small, tax deductable charges for state healthcare if it enables high quality, prompt treatment for people.

That seems unlikely. Kier Starmer seems set on following Tory policy as closely as he can.

Maybe he will. Blair did and it made a real difference but it probably took 10 years to see the benefits. Will any UK politician nowadays invest in something that long term. I have my doubts.

I haven't stopped being a British citizen, even though I am temporarily not a British resident:)

@soglad This is not an AIBU post

It may not be, but nevertheless you are definitely being unreasonable 🤷🏼‍♀️

Any smart watch shows your BPM. That's the whole point of them. When you get to know your BPM you can tell when there's something wrong. My partner noticed his BPM kept going up and down, he didn't know exactly what was wrong but knew it wasn't right so went to the doctors and got diagnosed with AF, if it wasn't for his fitbit he wouldn't have known.

You would have got exactly the same treatment and outcome in England

I have an Afib alert on my Smart watch too. I am a veteran of Afib and know myself when it's time to go to the hospital, I've been advised by the cardio team to do certain manoevres beforehand, and not to panic if I don't have chest pain, dizzyness etc. Three hours of fast fibrillation though and I'm off!

Having said that, as soon as I arrive in the cardiac swift care unit I'm assessed, monitored and drugged or cardioverted as needed. I have no complaints either.

However, it does seem that A+E in e.g. France, Italy and Spain are better staffed and are more efficient. Primary care is excellent too, which is probably why fewer have to go to A+E in the first place!

But as I already said we had exactly the same condition 5 years ago, and didn't get the same treatment.

Yabu - where treatment is urgent, the nhs is excellent, you don't even need to wait until the next day. What the nhs struggles with are procedures that are not urgent, but are quality of life issues, shortages of beds seem to mean that those who need aftercare are being unreasonably delayed

@soglad can I ask - what is your status there that entitles you to use their health system free like this?

Don’t really understand the point and your phrasing - are we all supposed to say “I’ve got to move to Italy now on the back of this post”?

You can -- just ordinary permesso di soggiorno (residency permit) linked to local employment

Italian residence or S1 status (posted worker) I'd guess.

But what do I know? I'm only guessing!

the safe management of AF is different in different circumstances. The delay in presenting for care this time meant your DH was probably quite close to the limit for being safely cardioverted acutely. Urgent cardioversion isn’t always the correct management - perhaps that’s where any differences in care between the two episodes were?

Not at all, when we moved here I had zero expectations either way, but everything we've experienced so far has been excellent -- dentistry, dermatology, A&E and now cardiac.

So this is a reflexion on why a wealthy country like UK with well-trained, motivated doctors and huge healthcare budgets can't make it work as well (in my personal opinion--clearly a lot of you think it is already wonderful and had positive experiences).

My fitbit can check for AF.

This post is in bad taste OP. Just be bloody thankful.

Yes. My colleague has ended up
In A&E with it several times. And had been treated quickly.

My partner has the exact same thing, NHS. However he was seen quicker than your husband and had the cardioversion process that evening instead of the next morning.

I think that a lot of the bad is widely reported, but for every one bad experience there are thousands of good ones.

My df had a heart attack on Christmas Eve, he had a pace maker fitted that evening, checked for stents etc on Christmas Day and then a few weeks later had a heart bypass (they had to leave him to recover from the lace maker or would have done it sooner). All via the national health service in the uk. They couldn't have been better.

I looked after a child who broke his femur skiing. They were medically evacuated, and mum was incredibly removed to get back to the NHS, as she was sleeping on the floor by her sons bed, having to use her coat as a pillow, and had no blanket.

Interesting. Where is all this evidence?

How awful for the poor child, however, in general I understand that there is limited specialist healthcare available in remote Alpine ski resorts in the mountains--Italians generally go to the major cities after accidents (our school is full of kids with broken limbs after winter half term). Imagine your friend went to a UK city for her treatment.

I would have to agree to a point (although I’m not elderly). Last January my husband called an ambulance and I was assessed briefly at home and in more depth on the way to A&E, culminating in my data being sent straight through to cardiology and my ride being upgraded to a blue light trip directly into the cath lab where I was immediately treated for a major heart attack, stented and my life saved within an hour of calling 999. I could not have wished for faster or better care from the paramedics or the cardiology unit.

The GP’s handling of my situation was not so great however - because I’m slim, fit, healthy and young they dismissed my multiple concerns that my heart was responsible for the pain I was getting when running. I was treated for heartburn for months.

I can imagine not everyone has as positive an experience with emergency NHS care as I did, however.