Lize's group podcast

In this podcast, the speakers compare healthcare in London and Belgium. In London, going to the doctor is free, but there is a lot of pressure on doctors due to the high demand. Braces are not commonly worn in London, and glasses are provided for free. Prescription medicines are free for those under 16 or over 60, but others have to pay around 8-10 pounds. Nurses in London are underpaid, earning around 20 pounds per hour on average. Hi everyone, welcome to our podcast. I'm Zeele and I'm sitting here with Lisa, I am from Belgium. Lindo and I'm from London. Karolina and I'm from London. And I'm Solene and I'm from Belgium. In this podcast, we are going to compare the healthcare in London with healthcare in Belgium. And we are going to start with the fact that in London, going to the doctor is free. Yeah, going to the GP is free. Like there's one nail house and you can just pop in whenever you want. It's not open 24 seven, but you can like, when it's open, you can go there for free and they'll attend you based on your needs. But because it's free, there's so much pressure for the doctors and the GPs. For example, my dad was feeling sick and he needed a full body scan. But because of the pressure that the doctors had, all they did was prescribe him medicine and he still felt sick afterwards. And that was because the doctors probably had more people to attend to, and more people to take care of and wanted to do like the work fast and finish it. So it's not like in Belgium, you have to pay every time you go to the doctor to make an appointment or something? No, no, no, you can just pop in whenever. You can have an appointment for like blood test or whatever, but all that is free. Oh wow. So like braces, do you get, is it also free like for braces or something? It depends. So like for under 16s, if you really like, if you really, really need it, you can get it for free. But if, if like you don't really need it, you just want it because you want to fix your teeth, then it's not free and you have to pay up to 3k, but you can pay annually. So you can pay like 1k a year or you can like pay a different system. Oh, like, and, and Belgium is like a lot of more money. It's like 4,000 and everybody wears it, so. Yeah. It's not like in Belgium, almost everyone wears braces or has worn braces. And in London, I heard like, you don't have a lot of braces. Like not everyone has it. It's not that common. Yeah, not everyone has it. Um, also, do you guys just pay for your glasses? Uh, yes. We have to pay up to 400 euros, I think, for glasses. Every time you go buy glasses. So it's a lot. Oh, in London, you don't have to pay for glasses. They give you two pairs of, a pair of glasses every year. Um, and you don't have to pay anything. Yeah. Cause you do like, um, annual, like annual visits and then they'll give you like two pairs for free, just in case it's on break. For under 16s and over 60s. So if you're between 60 to 60 to 16, you have to pay for it. So, uh, when you are not comfortable with glasses, you can also wear lenses. Are those free as well? Oh, no, no. Lenses, you have to pay for them. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I have another question. Like the prescription for medicines, like we always have to pay like one or two or $3 for like, um, to get medicines. How is, how is that in London? Oh, in London, um, braces, I mean, the prescription, they're free if you're under 16 or if you're over 60. So like if you're like 18, you still have to pay for it, but it will be like around 10 to eight pounds. So it's not too expensive. Can I ask you something? Yeah. Like the nurses, are they paid well? No, no. Um, sadly nurses are like underpaid. So they get paid around 20 pounds an hour on, on an average and 38K a year, which is like really bad comparing to like, um, footballers or like other, um, professions that don't like do as much as nurses. Okay. So this was our podcast. Thank you for listening. Yeah. Um, I hope you enjoyed it and goodbye. Thank you.