28. Joining Medicare

In the UK we are lucky that the majority of our medical expenses are picked up by the Government. I realise that’s what our taxes pay for but still, the NHS is essentially a free service.

Once when I was working in Accident and Emergency at the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow I treated a woman from Afghanistan. Her husband and her had just arrived in the Scotland having left their country and had somehow managed to get themselves to Prestwick airport of all places. Then they took the 40 mile train journey to Glasgow and presented themselves to our A&E dept.

I asked what the problem was and, in broken English, the husband told me that his wife had been having severe stomach pain for months and a local doctor had told him that his wife probably had gallstones and would eventually need her gall bladder removed. They were very poor and couldn’t afford the operation and the aftercare but they had enough to get them into Europe (I didn’t ask how) and then took a cheap flight to Scotland.

They had been told that the healthcare system in the UK was free to everyone and I guess the thought it better to spend their life savings on travelling to the UK than having someone do a half-hearted operation in their home country. I felt terrible for them both and it made me realise how lucky we are to have free access to healthcare. I felt even worse when I told him that I didn’t think it was gallstones and that his wife just had some gastritis or an ulcer which a few tablets would probably sort out. The stones were excluded by ultrasound scan but I still booked her into a surgical ward for the night mainly because she had nowhere else to go.

When people travel to Australia (or any other country for that matter) they are obsessed with insurance. Everyone always worries what would happen if they became ill in a foreign country and how they would pay for their health care. Well, it’s not really advertised but if you are going to live in Australia for any length of time then you can become a member of Medicare. This is a company that covers a great deal of your medical bills should you have them. The government pays for it but some treatments are not covered and non-Australians cannot use the system.

However, a handful of countries (including the UK) have a reciprocal agreement with Medicare. You can walk into any branch – found in most malls and on the high street – and ask for “Reciprocal Medical Cover”. You then show them some identification (including your Australian visa) and ten minutes later you are covered. So we did!