Advice on using the French Medical Services from France For Families

Advice on using the French Medical Services: Make sure you take out travel insurance for all the family before going on holiday. If you know you will be going abroad for more than one trip a year it is cost effective to take out annual multi-trip cover rather than several single-trip policies. Read the small print carefully so you know what to do in the event of an emergency. It is usual practice to have anything major approved by your insurance company who will have a 24 hour medical emergency number that you must call. Otherwise contact them as soon as possible. Keep all receipts!	Contacting emergency services: Familiarise yourselves with how to contact the emergency services. In France this can be done free of charge from a home or public telephone by dialling 15 which links directly through to SAMU, the emergency medical helpline. Alternatively it is possible to dial 112 from your mobile or a fixed line which gets you through to the emergency services as operates in all the European member states. The advantage of this option is that the person answering your call speaks both the language of the country you are in as well as English. They will then connect you to the relevant emergency service. France also operates a system of private ambulances, but these tend to be used (if necessary) after seeing a local doctor. Other numbers worth noting are Fire 18 and Police 17 (police and ambulance services. The above numbers should hopefully be available in the welcome pack, should you be staying in a gite. Alternatively your hotel/campsite will have the necessary information. A list of doctors, dentists, and nearest hospital is also useful to have. Again this information is usually provided by your gite owner or is available at campsite/hotel receptions.	Help using France For Families
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EHIC Card Ensure that all members of your party have an EHIC card (this has replaced the E111 form). Remember that this is for emergency health treatment only and does not cover you or your family for say repatriation, which is why it is advisable to have travel insurance as well.

Visiting a doctor A doctor can be visited at his surgery or he will make a home visit (much more common than in the UK). You will need to pay the doctor in cash at the time of the consultation. The French as a nation are much more ‘medicine’ conscious than we the British public are used to, so even for a fairly straight forward ailment do not be surprised to receive a prescription for a fair number of different medicines. The procedure is the same as in the UK. You take the prescription to the local pharmacy who will then dispense the drugs. As an example - one of our children had an ear infection and we came back from the pharmacist with 5 different medicines. Our French hosts insisted they were all essential.

Hospitals Should you require hospitalisation be rest assured that the French hospital system is first class. The only potential problem could be one of language, as English may not be spoken by hospital staff. It may be necessary to see if there is access to an interpreter.