Greetings all. First comment on Polandian after a few weeks of renidag. My experience is with Lithuania, not Poland, but from whatI read on a variety of topics, the countries are so similar in terms of inrastructure, govt, and, most importantly, the attitudes of people to a wide varietty of things.Which brings me to healthcare. Scatts hit the nail on the head with his diagnosis of hypochondria in Poland. From my experience, such levels are seen everyone from Germany eastwards. This is a major cultural difference in attitudes to healthcare between Lithuania/Poland and the UK, and from anectotal evidence is a major source of tension in mixed Lithuanian/British families. Typically, Lithuanian parent says, a8Oh my god, I/my child is ill. Take him to a specialist now. Do blood tests, mayhe has pneumonia. Keep him off school and don't let antone near him.a8 British parent says.a8 I/you/my child has a cough. Take some cough mixture. Of course I/you/my child is going to work/school.a8There are different expectation about health and medical professionals. For example, Lithuanians are aghast that doctors in the UK tend not to wear white coats anymore, and express surprise that Britons don't take food (I mean complete meals with soup, meat and veg) to their relatives in hospital. One difference is that there are about twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Lithuania/Poland than in the UK. There are WHO figures on this, and former Communist countires come out on top in Europe on the number of doctors per 1,000 people, while the lowest is the UK and Ireland. Teh result of this is that there an excess of doctors in most East European countries. Put crudely, there is easier access to doctors in Eastern Europe because there are simply more doctors. Conversely, there are more nurses per 1,000 people in the UK than in Poland and Lithuania. This is obvious when it comes to seeing a doctor. Poles are shocked when they go to the GPs in the UK for some minor ailment, and they see the practice nurse, not a doctor. In Poland, specialists do virtually everything, from giving injectons to children to treating minor cuts. Nurses clean the beds and and hand instruments to doctors (I know they do more, but that's how it appears to the patient like myself).Finally,. most comments above concentrate on the experience of care, but the major differences are in how the health system is organised. In the UK, the sacred, Nye Bevin-inspired a8free at the point of carea8 principle means that NHS administration is a nightmare of allocating funds.Finally, Britsh healthcare is on the whole qite differnt in organisation and expectations from Europe because there are hardly any professional links between British and Eurpean doctors. British doctors have close links with US/Canadian/Australian and Angolphone African and Asian countires, (where they all handily speak English and British doctors historically set up the heath system), but few connections with Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Hence there is a major culture clash when British medical staff meet Poles/Lithuanians etc either as patients or colleagues.Ocena: 1/5