In Sweden we have a fantastic health care.
No, please let me rephrase that.
In Sweden we have an AMAZING health care!
Every citizen has the right to public health care, without paying extra for an insurance for medical care. That is already included in the tax that we pay in our everyday life.
When we visit a doctor or a nurse, we pay 20 euro as an administration fee, and that’s it.
That is just amazing!
And wait, there is more. If we need to see a nurse or doctor many times during a period of 1 year, and we have paid 150 euro for all these visits – than we get a free card, meaning that the health care is TOTALLY FREE for the rest of the year!
That is just amazing – and that is how it should be everywhere!
Health care should be every human right to have access to.
Now in 2021 during the pandemic the health care and hospitals all over the world have been put to an extremely pressure and overload of work. That is of course the case here in Sweden as well.
So, when I got the referral to an audiologist, to make a proper hearing test, I was noticed that they had a waiting list of 1 year in my city. I could not believe what I heard – wait 1 year to make a simple standard hearing test. That was unbelievable, but totally understandable in the time of the pandemic.
Once again, I am lucky that Sweden have such an amazing health care, and we have a term that in Swedish that is “Vårdgaranti” which freely translated is something like Healthcare guarantee. That means that if the local health care not is able to provide me with the medical support that i need with in 90 days at a specialist (like an audiologist), then I am offered the same health care in another region. At no extra expense at all. Actually, the health care will help me and pay for the travel costs to the other city as well.
So, if you live in Sweden, and get referred to an audiologist or ENT (audionom eller Öron Näsa Hals doktor), and you can’t get an appointment in 90 days, then you have the right to be referred to an audiologist or ENT in another region. In most cases you can contact the audiologist yourself, but check with your local health care to make sure that is the case.
So i was told that I would have to wait for a whole year, to make a proper hearing test in my home town. That was because that the Covid pandemic has taken all resources and now the local audiologist had to catch up with all the patients that had been waiting.
So, the choice was easy for me, I made an appointment to an audiologist specialist in Stockholm, for a proper test made by professional medical staff that work only with hearing. My local audiologist arranged so that all the payments for that service where in order, based on “Vårdgarantin” as I mentioned above.
YEAH – so now I got the appointment with the audiologist booked and i was so excited about this, and could hardly wait to go there and get some proper answers!!!!