this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
106 points (84.9% liked)
Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related
2392 readers
439 users here now
Health: physical and mental, individual and public.
Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.
See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.
Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.
Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.
Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.
Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wait is it normal to need an appointment for a GP visit?
I mean, in Australia it is, although you can usually get one the same day/next day. Not sure where the 4 days comes from. The 21 days from the US is just madness tho, if accurate. By the time you see the doctor whatever you had had either passed or has killed you.
I didn't think these are "sick visits". I'm in the US and can see my GP within a day if I'm sick, but scheduling a physical will be much further out.
What would you consider to be a "physical"?
The comparison about countries is hard to understand because I'm not sure of what constitutes as one or another.
Where I live I can walk in on a public hospital and see a doctor within two hours if I don't have any risk that would give me priority. Then if the doctor asks for an exam or x-ray or something, it might be done shortly after on the same hospital if there's some time concern, or they may just request you to do the exam and then you can go after it yourself. In this case getting it for free can take quite some time, so there's several private clinics that people go to only for exams - they can sometimes do it within one or two days, other times it takes longer.
However if you need surgery or something more advanced, you may end up dying on a waiting list if the doctors don't properly detect how much of a risk you're at. I don't have any personal experience with this part of the Healthcare system though so I'm only saying this based on stories I've heard and from some news coverage I've seen in the past.
Meaning non-threatening regular check-ups. Check blood pressure, sugar levels, etc. If I call up saying I have a fever they would typically schedule something that afternoon (if it's morning) or the next day or two depending on severity - not make me wait 21 days.