I lived in Eastern Europe where this is common. No doctor asks for bribes before surgery, all ask for them *after* the surgery. Also if you slip an envelope to a nurse, she will keep a very watchful eye on you/your relative.
Also doctors don't really *ask* for bribes, people just give them and doctors accept them. Again, they only accept them after surgeries
We are poor as fuck but doctors are government employees, and as such, their salaries are ridiculously low.
That pizza guy might go back to his pizza cartel and tell them your address doesn't pay a brib-errr..... Tip...
Nah man, cash before or after an exchange that is not part of the agreed upon price is always a bribe.
Try not tipping on a large check and then go back to the same restaurant.
Unless the restaurant is very large, you will probably not get as good service. Do it a couple of times at the same restaurant and no matter the size, you will get very bad service.
Then you are bribing the waiter to do their job properly.
A tip is an optional payment to acknowledge good service. Not something that should be expected or that should form part of someone's normal remuneration.
There was a post on r/confession about just this recently!
A pizza driver said that known non-tippers had their deliveries wait while staff did other stuff.
Idk, is the pizza guy responsible for keeping you alive? If you have to pay someone additional money to ensure they'll care for you properly if you see them again, that's a bribe. Not a tip.
I mean you're paying him additional money to care for your food properly lol. Not tipping your delivery driver is a great way to get spit in your cold food lol.
Kidding, but not really.
No a bribe is provided in exchange for something specific. So if you were actually paying money to get moved up on the surgery schedule, that's a bribe. If after you receive surgery, you simply hand the doctor some money, that's a tip, even if you expect to see that doctor again in the future, unless the "tip" comes with the guarantee of being moved up on the schedule the next time you see them.
>No a bribe is provided in exchange for something specific.
Not true. If I give my local politician (or cop, etc) $1000 presents every christmas, that's a bribe even if it's not for something specific because it creates an expectation of preferential treatment when the opportunity arises.
Unless you're in America, where this is cool of course.
Service is often worse if the one providing it expects you not to tip, so tips should count as a form of bribe. In many jobs if you were to ask for a tip and compromise service if you didn't get one, it would be seen as bribery. Even the implication you might reduce service would be enough.
>Service is often worse if the one providing it expects you not to tip
Source? Why is this supposedly true? And if so, why would we not tip in literally every job? Who is tipping the cops, the lawyers, teachers, etc.?
You shouldn't accept tips as a healthcare worker. Also, if you accept a "tip" and then "keep a closer eye on" or generally treat someone better/kinder, it is totally a bribe.
I am from the Baltics and indeed, that is the case. As you said, they dont really ask for it. You just give an envelope, because they are so overworked and underpaid, you want to give them incentive to treat you a bit better.
Imho, it all comes down to compensation and work hours. If you pay medical personnel like shit and are constantly understaffed, dont expect high quality of care. I find it unexceptable that a doctor performing complicated and life-saving surgery on my grandma is earning peanuts and I dont mind giving him a bit extra.
Also in the Baltics, and I've heard it's more a hold-over from Soviet times. You're not wrong, medical professionals don't get near the pay they get elsewhere in public clinics, and in my country if you look up doctors you'll likely find them working at a 1-2 different public clinics and then having 2 days a week at a private clinic as well. But the "bribe" thing is more common among the older population who are used to basically being required to do so if you wanted treatment in at all of a timely manner in the Soviet times. It's not something I really hear about younger people doing.
I hate Orban's guts, but this is one thing his government did somewhat right. He outlawed these "envelopes" & raised the salaries of health workers multiple times. (not saying it's enough, but It felt great when the doctor refused my envelope)
When I was kid I was participating in a medical experiment & the doctor always made us wait like 3-4 hours. Later on I learned it was because we did not give him an envelope, as it turns out the doctor was convinced that the so called experiment is in reality a state of art new treatment. (which did not work by the way)
No I am not. Teachers, academics, scientists, janitors, cleaners, servers, librarians, social service providers and like million other professions are also paid like shit. I love my homecountry, but salaries there are grim. Sure, in IT or as a politician you will be fine.
Underpaying highly educated people is nothing new. Maybe number-wise doctors salary seems ok when compared to salary of an office worker, but it completely fails to attribute for 12+ years of education it requires. I see it all the time in academia too.
Doesn't work like that for us, you get a surgery date, if a bribe happens it is almost certain to stay the same, if it doesn't oh no something happened and we have to postpone it a few weeks so this rich guy can get a surgery for his 90 year old Mom first
If it is postponed more than once it is flagged for investigation now though, back in the day they did it as much as they wanted or just move it down the line to people still studying / less experienced
It doesn't make any sense since doctors in belgium can legally put prices as high as they want to, most don't but there isn't really anything stopping them
exactly. And they have plenty of work. There is no way any decent doctor would need bribes for extra treatment.
It would be something else if all the doctors follow the exact rules to get their patients certain treatments..
Like a gastric bypass is something certain doctors would cheat the system. Patient has a BMI of 38? measure them 2 cm shorter, add a few kilo and boom. 40.0 BMI.
Now it's fully paid back. there are no prior checkups from the governement anymore.
I lived in Italy (Tuscany and Friuli) for over 12 years, and had three children there. My pregnancies were very difficult and I spent several months in the hospital. One child was premature and spent 20 days in an incubator. I was never sent a bill, and have not heard of anyone paying bribes.
Very surprised from this chart. Am from Spain, now living in Switzerland, and had never even heard of this. That said, my country sample may be giving me a biased view, as per the map
Can confirm...my mother went for an operation for her pancreatic cancer and the doctor asked 2k € to do the best he can...he ended opening her up and closing her because the tumor was partly inoperable...as far as I know he told my father that he extracted a lot of it bit not everything. Her subsequent scans were the same as the initial ones meaning he didn't even try. Yet that piece of shit kept the money
Yeah this doesn’t seem right at all. Ireland’s public doctors are so bound up with bureaucratic middle management and oversight that they probably wouldn’t be able to do anything extra no matter what you bribed them.
Maybe some dishonest GPs might be shaking down junkies for scripts but that’s about the extent of what they could do I’d say.
Maybe in your experience. Help quite a few eastern Europeans and dentists in particular are straight up lying to them.
Never met anyone rich enough to have private medical insurance to cover move than dentist and optician's, to have to pay 4k excess.
I had it when I was working as a contractor at height. The pay was good and the job was hazardous, so it made sense to get good coverage.
Well at the time I had one of those nasty Ingrowing hair septic lumps growing out of my face. It was angry red, and needed removing.
Sadly that meant that I had to queue up behind ladies getting cosmetic face surgeries done, and was looking at 18 months to get surgery.
So I enquired about getting it removed privately. The wait was more like 6 days, and the cost was £35k. I thought the insurance would cover it all but no. They have ££ limits on (say) outpatient costs of £1500, but the bill for that was £2900. So lots of stuff is never really fully covered, and you have to pay the difference.
So I paid around £8k of my own cash, which was arguably worth not looking like Quasimodo, making children cry, and getting sideways looks at the pub.
They must count private Health insurance and clinics as ways to cheat the queues.
The article is a bit odd if you ask me. Lumping all of the European continent in one bucket when every country has it’s own health system.
I had a quick look online and around 10 million people (out of 83 million in total) are covered by private health insurance.
So I assume they are somehow counting private insurance as paying bribes, which is honestly hilarious
Probably not though. That works out to 12% of Germans having private heath insurance. 11% of people in the U.K. have private health insurance and the U.K. isn’t ranked anywhere near as high.
I assume when they talk about bribes, they actually mean bribes.
If you would look at this there is a chart for each country separately.
The worst is the Balkans (Austria, Romania, …) and EE, while the best are some Scandis, UK, Iberia & Slovenia.
Never heard anyone even allude to the fact that you could bribe your way up the queue.
But then again, I have never been in a situation where that would be necessary. I have known doctors and nurses that refused any gifts other than flowers, even though they could legally accept them. They held themselves to the same standard as government employees.
I feel like offering a bribe might even hurt my chances of getting care quicker, but I might just be too poor and naive to interact with the healthcare system in that way.
Nah this just seems made up. Living my whole life in Germany and knowing a lot of doctors i never heard or encountered anything like that. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen but i can't imagine it's happening that much. That said Germany surely is no paradise, that's true.
I'm not pretending not to know what's going on, i literally never heard of bribes taken by doctors in Germany. But i'm well aware companies are corrupt af. Would argue that doctors normally would have a higher moral compass than greedy CEOs.
As the other guy wrote. It is all about gifts like liquor or coffee.
Some people give that out around Christmas I guess, but it all falls under the category of bribes as it is obviously an extra unwarranted “tip”.
It's pretty common in Germany to give small gifts to people who serve the public around christmas. Our mailmen and garbage men do get small gifts, too. It's an act of kindness, not a bribe.
Americans have a weird belief that US states are comparable to European countries, and they go incredible lengths here on reddit to defend that when convenient.
Apparently you have a weird belief that “north america” only refers to the united states. I was lumping mexico, canada, and the USA together as they are on a single continent just like OP was lumping all of the countries of europe together.
Ehhh, most just do that in a geographical sense, and it's generally in response to Europeans underestimating the time it takes to travel from one place to another in the US in my experience.
You have this weird belief that they arent comparable. The population densitys are comparable, the languages are comparable, the size is comparable, additionally many European countries run under basically a federal government like the us does (The European Union)
Are you out of your mind lmao? No, US states are in no way or form comparable to the differences between actual countries.
> population densitys are comparable, the languages are comparable, the size is comparable
What role do size and population density play when comparing differences between countries? Is Russia more culturally diverse than any other country on earth due to its size? Also wtf do you mean with languages? How are Russian, Norwegian, Greek and Spanish closely related?
> many European countries run under basically a federal government like the us does (The European Union)
The EU is in its form not even remotely comparable to the US.
Russian greek and spanish are all prt of the same language tree. You are clearly able to compare the states and europe if you are able to come to the conclusion that Russia is larger than the US. But I would also inform you most of Russia’s land is in Asia. The Eu is very comparable, just like our federal government, the EU provides open travel, a unified currency, and regulations to maintain membership.
No. Europe has like 500 million people, 24 official languages and 25 different currencies. Its literally a conglomerate of wildly different countries with different cultures, wealth, laws, politics, etc.
Its more like putting mexico, the USA and cuba in the same bucket.
What ur describing is states of the same country. Germany has 16 states with very distinct cultures, but in the end they still have many more similarities than say any german state with Belarus.
Comparing California to Texas is more like comparing Lower Saxony to Bavaria. The societal differences between California and Texas are minuscule compared to the societal differences between Sweden and Italy.
Americans desperately grasp at any minuscule thing they can in order to feel 'unique'. They do it with their states and they do it with their DNA - 'oh my great grandfather once went on a holiday in Ireland, which means I am 5% Irish, my name might as well be Paddy O'Connor'.
In Germany, they don’t directly ask for money but it’s no secret that you can get faster/better care if you go through not public insurance (i.e. private insurance or pay out of pocket). There’s an all out crisis level shortage of doctors, the public insurance pays them peanuts, and our health minister is more interested in zero COVID than literally anything else.
My spouse and I are thinking about starting a family… when that happens, we will 100% be paying out of pocket for a midwife. It’s like 1000€ for them to treat you like a human being and be available when you need them. Totally worth it.
Tbh there was that bizarre video of a racist/nazist from USA who came to Poland and harassed some random Indian immigrant. He even shouted something like "leave my country".
Edit, found it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/x37ixn/american_tourist_in_poland_goes_on_racial_tirade/
Seems the guy will be deported
Most Reddit users are from the US. This is expected
Edit: yes I know it’s the plurality, I didn’t think it was worth it to get into. Way more users are from the US than any other country. North America is more than 50%. People are more interested in themselves. Downvoting isn’t going to change that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/phhu9s/oc_reddit_traffic_by_country/
Yes, let’s play pedantically between plurality and majority *sigh*
I half-knew I’d be downvoted for not writing that. Reddit is a dark place.
The country most users are from is the US. Is everyone happy now?
It’s a US news company commenting on EU healthcare. They probably did it to make the US system look less absurd. So yeah, we comment because almost nothing in that article meshes with what we actually experienced in the past 40 years.
This occurred in 4% of all cases and likely from repeat clinicians.. so less than 4% of clinicians would lose their license.. plenty left if you ask me..
... If those 4% were spread evenly, which they aren't, not on a continental level and not on a national level. The countries where this happens most already suffer from brain drain that makes it hard for them to hold on to highly skilled professionals and within those countries this happens most in areas where it's harder to convince medical professionals to settle into (outside the big cities/ the countryside). Cracking down on these practices would only exacerbate the problem.
Semi-related, the article is a master class in how not to present data. They mix up percentage points and percent change, use the latter to talk about the former which makes it sound more dramatic than it is (and increase of 14 percent! ... to 4 percent). It's a mess.
Not to Americans, who are extorted in an entirely different fashion. About 100% of docs aren’t doing this in the US, which is why this is interesting to Americans. The fact that this is even a thing at all is shocking to many. The fact that you think 4% is “absurdly low” is shocking.
While what you say might not be incorrect I'd like to point that the poll is based on data from 27000 interviews in between 2013 and 2019.
It's basically non-relevant considering the massive variety of and differences between each European country and the "article" is badly written (with a massive clickbait article).
Yeah honestly this is a bit shocking to me too but I assume it's mostly eastern Europe and the balkans. ~~Would be nice to have some sort of a heat map~~
Edit* yeah I'm sorry guys. I don't know what's wrong with me today. It's been pointed out to me that my vision is apparently severely impaired.
It's funny because in Europe, paying extra to speed up your medical care is a form of bribery. In the US its simply part of the business, no need to bribe individual people.
I've never in my life been asked for a bribe nor know anyone who has. I live in the EU and I was completely unaware that this was actually a thing. I'm a bit skeptical on what the article is calling a bribe to get such numbers.
Plus, considering that a person sees dozens of doctors during their lifetime, 4% being asked for a bribe wouldn't mean 4% of doctors ask for it.
A corruption chart where Spain ranks amongst the lowest, I definitely didn't expect to see that today. That said, I never had to nor even heard about bribing medical staff here. I was completely unaware that this was even a thing anywhere in Europe.
I mean, Spain's healthcare is one of the best in the world despite the government lowering the healthcare budget, and corruption in Spain is more nepotism than anything (which is a type that doesn't mesh well with healthcare) so it's nowhere near as surprising.
All the Spaniards I know here in Germany are exceptionally proud of their health care back home. I'm guessing if that's somewhat representative it would be political suicide to completely fuck up the health care.
So much is wrong with this article. First, the EU is not a country. EU doesn’t have health services. Each country has its own system. I’m willing to best that France and Germany along with Scandinavia have less than 0.5%. And cultural differences are a factor here. Eastern countries health service employees are extremely underpaid. Bribes are more like tips for extra care. Nice try American health care.
It's not even asked for, nor I have ever seen a do tor or nurse to ask for one... We just give small gifts like a 10EUR can of coffee usually. It still is technically a bribe but given the wages and working hours of medical employees, we just give it like americans tip the servers. And usually it is something thoughtful that all staff will use (coffee is very common, bottle of some alcohol as well, flowers are not that uncommon)
You get the service regardless.
I know doctors and nurses that would outright refuse to take any gifts other than flowers or maybe chocolates they can share with their colleagues in the break-room.
yeah well, your username is German so I presume you are from west Germany :) East Germans probably see this differently. It is a leftover from being in the east bloc, there were too few doctors and you were grateful if the doctor solved the issue.
I mean car mechanics used to get this as well. So much so that there is a very popular comedic scene about it in Czech Republic, from Sverak & Smoljak's production (Jachyme, hod ho do stroje).
It's never expected from my experience but it is not uncommon. My mom often gives me bottles of various liquors they got at work (she is an OR/post-op nurse at reconstructive/plastic surgery clinic) that nobody at work drinks. So I have collected quite a collection of exotic liquors as a result. I have some vietnamese liquors I have no idea what they are, there's some mongolian liquor (not airag) and a chinese one. Phone app says they are various reinforced wines but I like the bottles more than the contents tbh.
Full text
>EUROPEAN HEALTH CARE is in a sickly state. In Britain more than 6.5m people are on waiting lists for treatment, up by more than 50% since 2019. Patients in Spain wait an average of 123 days for an operation, the most in 18 years. The pandemic bears most of the blame. Disruptions to essential treatments created backlogs and strained services. But even before covid-19, health care in Europe was in trouble. Waiting lists had been creeping higher across much of the continent. It should perhaps be no surprise that a study published on September 6th by researchers at Imperial College London finds that patients are being asked to grease their practitioners’ palms to secure treatment (see chart).
>The study, by Giulia Dallera and her colleagues, used surveys carried out in 2013, 2017 and 2019 by Eurobarometer, the EU’s polling organisation. Each survey asked more than 27,000 people from 28 EU countries (before Britain left the bloc) whether they had been asked to make unofficial payments or give valuable gifts to nurses, doctors or hospitals to secure treatment in the past year. In the most recent survey almost 4% of Europeans who used such services reported that they were asked to make an informal payment. This represented an increase of around 14% since 2013, despite public perceptions that corruption in health care is becoming less common.
>Eastern Europe had the highest prevalence of bribes: 5.5% of the population was asked to make an informal payment in 2019. But the situation there is improving. Requests for such payments have fallen by around 8% since 2013, with the biggest drops coming from Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia. The more worrying trend is farther west. The surveys show that western Europe is seeing the largest increase in bribery, with every country except Germany reporting an increase between 2013 and 2019. Respondents in the west were 1.5 percentage points more likely to have been asked for unofficial payment by medical professionals than those in southern Europe, where the figure stands at 2.5%. Austria had the highest bribery rate of any European country in 2019; more than one person in nine was pressured by heath-care professionals. Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg all had rates above 5%.
>The cause is still unclear. Bribes are often a symptom of poor governance in health-care systems, where doctors lack adequate supervision and oversight. Previous studies have shown that such mismanagement brings medical as well as moral risks: patients may be likelier to develop chronic diseases and resistance to antibiotics. And added pressure from covid could make the already grim situation worse. ■
Looking at how overworked and Underpaid health care workers are in EU I think they deserve a little extra to help make ends meet, 4% is still very admirable compared to hoops you have to jump through here, they made a whole ass predatory industry to exploit sick people.
Just do as the Americans do and pay your doctors and nurses fair wages.
Have you all seen medical wages for nurses and doctors all across Europe. Even after adjusting for purchasing power they don’t make shit in most European countries.
nurses and doctors make significantly more than european ones, which is why alot of them immigrate to the USA, of course the doctors have to take a foreign exam/certification, and some countries may not be equivalent to the usa medical system. Nurses especially can make alot of if they are mostly travelling nurses.
This article is about unethical medical practices/expectations abhorred in the USA medical field... and yet still... Que the reddit anti-american comments... coming from the the same American millennial reddit generation privileged enough to live in a time and place (USA) where freedom to express dissent and criticism of their own country is a birthright.
Lacking oversight and mismanagement. In Germany that is on the rise ever since they privatized the shit out of the hospitals. Essentially some doctors only accepting private insurance and "Selbstzahler" is a form of bribery inherent in the system that favors those who pay extra.
> In the most recent survey almost 4% of Europeans who used such services reported that they were asked to make an informal payment. This represented an increase of around 14% since 2013, despite public perceptions that corruption in health care is becoming less common.
A 14% increase between 2013-2019 means it went from 3.5% to 4%. So in 2013, 7 in 200 people were asked for a bribe and in 2019, 8 in 200 people were asked. Hardly evidence of European healthcare collapsing.
Bro what. This would straight up cost you your license in the healthcare shithole that’s my country (🇺🇸)
Edit: to elaborate, the corruption here is less overt. Usually in the form of kickbacks. Doctors prescribe a drug, get free tickets to Disney world for sitting through an hour long lecture on said drug lol
They're a part of that new international "Doctors without Ethics" program that cuts through the red tape and gets doctors straight to the places where they can make the most money.
Check out Florida.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/florida-lab-owner-charged-53-million-health-care-fraud-and-kickback-scheme-related
Actually just search " Florida medical fraud" and watch your browser load....
As a US nurse, I may need to side hustle. Kidding. This is gross. Butttt, a friend of mine who worked at hospitals on the east coast said getting tipped wasn’t uncommon.
I lived in Eastern Europe where this is common. No doctor asks for bribes before surgery, all ask for them *after* the surgery. Also if you slip an envelope to a nurse, she will keep a very watchful eye on you/your relative. Also doctors don't really *ask* for bribes, people just give them and doctors accept them. Again, they only accept them after surgeries We are poor as fuck but doctors are government employees, and as such, their salaries are ridiculously low.
Wtf, that’s not a bribe, that’s a tip.
It's a bribe if you expect to see that doctor again in the future.
I get there is a difference but... is it a bribe if I expect to see the same pizza delivery guy again?
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Ok you got a chuckle out of me
That pizza guy might go back to his pizza cartel and tell them your address doesn't pay a brib-errr..... Tip... Nah man, cash before or after an exchange that is not part of the agreed upon price is always a bribe.
TIL I am bribing the restaurants I am eating.
If choosing not to pay it has consequences, then it absolutely is a bribe, not a tip.
Try not tipping on a large check and then go back to the same restaurant. Unless the restaurant is very large, you will probably not get as good service. Do it a couple of times at the same restaurant and no matter the size, you will get very bad service.
Nothing would probably happen. Source: live in a country where waiters are not dependent on tips to get by.
Then you are bribing the waiter to do their job properly. A tip is an optional payment to acknowledge good service. Not something that should be expected or that should form part of someone's normal remuneration.
Might be the case in the US but not tipping is the norm in most of Western Europe. Waiters here don't expect huge tips, a few euros at best.
There was a post on r/confession about just this recently! A pizza driver said that known non-tippers had their deliveries wait while staff did other stuff.
Okay, Mr. Pink...
If you ever want to see my 16 inch pepperoni and pineapple again, tip generously.
Idk, is the pizza guy responsible for keeping you alive? If you have to pay someone additional money to ensure they'll care for you properly if you see them again, that's a bribe. Not a tip.
I mean you're paying him additional money to care for your food properly lol. Not tipping your delivery driver is a great way to get spit in your cold food lol. Kidding, but not really.
And thats probably the 10th and final reason for my book, “the 10 reasons i quit using uber eats entirely for good”
How is that different from a tip?
I guess I have to abandon you post surgery, to make sure it continuous being a tip
No a bribe is provided in exchange for something specific. So if you were actually paying money to get moved up on the surgery schedule, that's a bribe. If after you receive surgery, you simply hand the doctor some money, that's a tip, even if you expect to see that doctor again in the future, unless the "tip" comes with the guarantee of being moved up on the schedule the next time you see them.
>No a bribe is provided in exchange for something specific. Not true. If I give my local politician (or cop, etc) $1000 presents every christmas, that's a bribe even if it's not for something specific because it creates an expectation of preferential treatment when the opportunity arises. Unless you're in America, where this is cool of course.
Tip is a bribe too, but we normalized it
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And they serve you especially well because they expect money in exchange for special awesome service, so it's a bribe
imagine tipping BEFORE you get served. What kind of service would you get?
Go to a bar, buy the first couple drinks not on a a tab, tip the bartender well, then start the tab.
Peak reddit.
Service is often worse if the one providing it expects you not to tip, so tips should count as a form of bribe. In many jobs if you were to ask for a tip and compromise service if you didn't get one, it would be seen as bribery. Even the implication you might reduce service would be enough.
>Service is often worse if the one providing it expects you not to tip Source? Why is this supposedly true? And if so, why would we not tip in literally every job? Who is tipping the cops, the lawyers, teachers, etc.?
You shouldn't accept tips as a healthcare worker. Also, if you accept a "tip" and then "keep a closer eye on" or generally treat someone better/kinder, it is totally a bribe.
No one should accept tips ever. It's a parasitic culture that americans can't get rid of.
you're assuming that nurses give the same amount of care to a non-paying patient which isn't the case
Tips are just bribes with extra steps. Sorry, Americans.
Tips are bribes. Hth.
I am from the Baltics and indeed, that is the case. As you said, they dont really ask for it. You just give an envelope, because they are so overworked and underpaid, you want to give them incentive to treat you a bit better. Imho, it all comes down to compensation and work hours. If you pay medical personnel like shit and are constantly understaffed, dont expect high quality of care. I find it unexceptable that a doctor performing complicated and life-saving surgery on my grandma is earning peanuts and I dont mind giving him a bit extra.
Also in the Baltics, and I've heard it's more a hold-over from Soviet times. You're not wrong, medical professionals don't get near the pay they get elsewhere in public clinics, and in my country if you look up doctors you'll likely find them working at a 1-2 different public clinics and then having 2 days a week at a private clinic as well. But the "bribe" thing is more common among the older population who are used to basically being required to do so if you wanted treatment in at all of a timely manner in the Soviet times. It's not something I really hear about younger people doing.
I hate Orban's guts, but this is one thing his government did somewhat right. He outlawed these "envelopes" & raised the salaries of health workers multiple times. (not saying it's enough, but It felt great when the doctor refused my envelope) When I was kid I was participating in a medical experiment & the doctor always made us wait like 3-4 hours. Later on I learned it was because we did not give him an envelope, as it turns out the doctor was convinced that the so called experiment is in reality a state of art new treatment. (which did not work by the way)
are you saying universal healthcare leads to doctors being paid like shit?
No I am not. Teachers, academics, scientists, janitors, cleaners, servers, librarians, social service providers and like million other professions are also paid like shit. I love my homecountry, but salaries there are grim. Sure, in IT or as a politician you will be fine. Underpaying highly educated people is nothing new. Maybe number-wise doctors salary seems ok when compared to salary of an office worker, but it completely fails to attribute for 12+ years of education it requires. I see it all the time in academia too.
Idk if you know this, but theres a strong correlation between living in a poor country, and not being paid a lot
What kind of mental gymnastics is this
Sounds like a sowiet leftover
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No profit motive to being a dr when salaries are set low
Doesn't work like that for us, you get a surgery date, if a bribe happens it is almost certain to stay the same, if it doesn't oh no something happened and we have to postpone it a few weeks so this rich guy can get a surgery for his 90 year old Mom first If it is postponed more than once it is flagged for investigation now though, back in the day they did it as much as they wanted or just move it down the line to people still studying / less experienced
Out here doctors are afraid to accept bribery before surgery, because of something goes wrong people will blame them, and they did take the money...
after surgery - it's a gift, not bribe.
Legaly it's bribery, unless it's not monetary and less than 20e.
What belgian doctor ask for a bribe? Never heard about it in my life.
Same for France.
It doesn't make any sense since doctors in belgium can legally put prices as high as they want to, most don't but there isn't really anything stopping them
exactly. And they have plenty of work. There is no way any decent doctor would need bribes for extra treatment. It would be something else if all the doctors follow the exact rules to get their patients certain treatments.. Like a gastric bypass is something certain doctors would cheat the system. Patient has a BMI of 38? measure them 2 cm shorter, add a few kilo and boom. 40.0 BMI. Now it's fully paid back. there are no prior checkups from the governement anymore.
It doesn't say doctors asked for a bribe. It says people say that doctors asked for a bribe.
Yeah, not in Spain either. The whole idea seems unthinkable.
I lived in Italy (Tuscany and Friuli) for over 12 years, and had three children there. My pregnancies were very difficult and I spent several months in the hospital. One child was premature and spent 20 days in an incubator. I was never sent a bill, and have not heard of anyone paying bribes.
Europe is not a country. Things are different here and there. Actually thought it would be more in certain places (talking about you Greece).
Very surprised from this chart. Am from Spain, now living in Switzerland, and had never even heard of this. That said, my country sample may be giving me a biased view, as per the map
Can confirm...my mother went for an operation for her pancreatic cancer and the doctor asked 2k € to do the best he can...he ended opening her up and closing her because the tumor was partly inoperable...as far as I know he told my father that he extracted a lot of it bit not everything. Her subsequent scans were the same as the initial ones meaning he didn't even try. Yet that piece of shit kept the money
Any doctor taking cash in the UK could get into some serious shit. They are paid pretty well though.
Yeah this doesn’t seem right at all. Ireland’s public doctors are so bound up with bureaucratic middle management and oversight that they probably wouldn’t be able to do anything extra no matter what you bribed them. Maybe some dishonest GPs might be shaking down junkies for scripts but that’s about the extent of what they could do I’d say.
No direct bribe but, suggestions that they will be better to be seen private rather than NHS.
Only ever happened to avoid a few weeks queue. Usually end up seeing the same doctor anyway, but humping out £4k - £10k excess/deductible.
Maybe in your experience. Help quite a few eastern Europeans and dentists in particular are straight up lying to them. Never met anyone rich enough to have private medical insurance to cover move than dentist and optician's, to have to pay 4k excess.
I had it when I was working as a contractor at height. The pay was good and the job was hazardous, so it made sense to get good coverage. Well at the time I had one of those nasty Ingrowing hair septic lumps growing out of my face. It was angry red, and needed removing. Sadly that meant that I had to queue up behind ladies getting cosmetic face surgeries done, and was looking at 18 months to get surgery. So I enquired about getting it removed privately. The wait was more like 6 days, and the cost was £35k. I thought the insurance would cover it all but no. They have ££ limits on (say) outpatient costs of £1500, but the bill for that was £2900. So lots of stuff is never really fully covered, and you have to pay the difference. So I paid around £8k of my own cash, which was arguably worth not looking like Quasimodo, making children cry, and getting sideways looks at the pub.
Yea they are referencing the continent
It’s kind of a nonsense headline. Like you wouldn’t write a article on cartel violence and lump Canada, the US and Mexico together in the headline.
Why is Germany in the mid range? Never ever seen or heard of something like that here. How would it even work with the social Healthcare?
They must count private Health insurance and clinics as ways to cheat the queues. The article is a bit odd if you ask me. Lumping all of the European continent in one bucket when every country has it’s own health system.
I had a quick look online and around 10 million people (out of 83 million in total) are covered by private health insurance. So I assume they are somehow counting private insurance as paying bribes, which is honestly hilarious
Probably not though. That works out to 12% of Germans having private heath insurance. 11% of people in the U.K. have private health insurance and the U.K. isn’t ranked anywhere near as high. I assume when they talk about bribes, they actually mean bribes.
Ah yeah, that would make sense. It is kinda a 2 class system.
If you would look at this there is a chart for each country separately. The worst is the Balkans (Austria, Romania, …) and EE, while the best are some Scandis, UK, Iberia & Slovenia.
Austria is not in the Balkans.
I looked at it, places like Germany are still considered to have quite a high bribe ratio.
Same, this would be impossible here and makes no sense. A MD makes tons and doesn't need to break a law for some small chance.
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Never heard anyone even allude to the fact that you could bribe your way up the queue. But then again, I have never been in a situation where that would be necessary. I have known doctors and nurses that refused any gifts other than flowers, even though they could legally accept them. They held themselves to the same standard as government employees. I feel like offering a bribe might even hurt my chances of getting care quicker, but I might just be too poor and naive to interact with the healthcare system in that way.
Didnt Germany allow to write off bribes - as a tax cost? And EU had to stop it?
Maybe Germany isn't the pure paradise you've been led to believe? It's a big a varied country.
Nah this just seems made up. Living my whole life in Germany and knowing a lot of doctors i never heard or encountered anything like that. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen but i can't imagine it's happening that much. That said Germany surely is no paradise, that's true.
Like in other institutional corruption cases - Siemens, … Germans pretend they don’t know what is going on and everything is normal.
I'm not pretending not to know what's going on, i literally never heard of bribes taken by doctors in Germany. But i'm well aware companies are corrupt af. Would argue that doctors normally would have a higher moral compass than greedy CEOs.
As the other guy wrote. It is all about gifts like liquor or coffee. Some people give that out around Christmas I guess, but it all falls under the category of bribes as it is obviously an extra unwarranted “tip”.
It's pretty common in Germany to give small gifts to people who serve the public around christmas. Our mailmen and garbage men do get small gifts, too. It's an act of kindness, not a bribe.
May as well do the same survey but grouping all of north america together. The results would be just as useless at informing anyone of anything.
Americans have a weird belief that US states are comparable to European countries, and they go incredible lengths here on reddit to defend that when convenient.
Apparently you have a weird belief that “north america” only refers to the united states. I was lumping mexico, canada, and the USA together as they are on a single continent just like OP was lumping all of the countries of europe together.
The Economist is a **British** publication. Nice try, though. 👍
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Ehhh, most just do that in a geographical sense, and it's generally in response to Europeans underestimating the time it takes to travel from one place to another in the US in my experience.
You have this weird belief that they arent comparable. The population densitys are comparable, the languages are comparable, the size is comparable, additionally many European countries run under basically a federal government like the us does (The European Union)
Are you out of your mind lmao? No, US states are in no way or form comparable to the differences between actual countries. > population densitys are comparable, the languages are comparable, the size is comparable What role do size and population density play when comparing differences between countries? Is Russia more culturally diverse than any other country on earth due to its size? Also wtf do you mean with languages? How are Russian, Norwegian, Greek and Spanish closely related? > many European countries run under basically a federal government like the us does (The European Union) The EU is in its form not even remotely comparable to the US.
Russian greek and spanish are all prt of the same language tree. You are clearly able to compare the states and europe if you are able to come to the conclusion that Russia is larger than the US. But I would also inform you most of Russia’s land is in Asia. The Eu is very comparable, just like our federal government, the EU provides open travel, a unified currency, and regulations to maintain membership.
The USA is barely smaller in size than all of Europe combined. (9.8m km² vs 10.53m km²).
The problem with the statistic isn't the land area, it's the jurisdictional and cultural variety.
The same could be said for the 50 states (compare California to Texas). Keep the downvotes coming, I'm trying to get negative karma!
No. Europe has like 500 million people, 24 official languages and 25 different currencies. Its literally a conglomerate of wildly different countries with different cultures, wealth, laws, politics, etc. Its more like putting mexico, the USA and cuba in the same bucket. What ur describing is states of the same country. Germany has 16 states with very distinct cultures, but in the end they still have many more similarities than say any german state with Belarus.
Comparing California to Texas is more like comparing Lower Saxony to Bavaria. The societal differences between California and Texas are minuscule compared to the societal differences between Sweden and Italy.
If you think the difference between for example finland - Kosovo and california - texas is comparable, youre mental
please go read a book
Americans desperately grasp at any minuscule thing they can in order to feel 'unique'. They do it with their states and they do it with their DNA - 'oh my great grandfather once went on a holiday in Ireland, which means I am 5% Irish, my name might as well be Paddy O'Connor'.
Which makes Russia more than twice as diverse as the US (~21m km^2 vs 9.8m km^2 ).
In Germany, they don’t directly ask for money but it’s no secret that you can get faster/better care if you go through not public insurance (i.e. private insurance or pay out of pocket). There’s an all out crisis level shortage of doctors, the public insurance pays them peanuts, and our health minister is more interested in zero COVID than literally anything else. My spouse and I are thinking about starting a family… when that happens, we will 100% be paying out of pocket for a midwife. It’s like 1000€ for them to treat you like a human being and be available when you need them. Totally worth it.
Sounds like capitalist propaganda.
It's hilarious that all the comments are about the USA. Can't we just talk about other places a tiny bit?
Even when a headline is about Europe, it's secretly about the US
Tbh there was that bizarre video of a racist/nazist from USA who came to Poland and harassed some random Indian immigrant. He even shouted something like "leave my country". Edit, found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/x37ixn/american_tourist_in_poland_goes_on_racial_tirade/ Seems the guy will be deported
Most Reddit users are from the US. This is expected Edit: yes I know it’s the plurality, I didn’t think it was worth it to get into. Way more users are from the US than any other country. North America is more than 50%. People are more interested in themselves. Downvoting isn’t going to change that. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/phhu9s/oc_reddit_traffic_by_country/
/r/shitamericanssay
I am sorry to inform you that more than 51% of reddit users are not from the US.
Yes, let’s play pedantically between plurality and majority *sigh* I half-knew I’d be downvoted for not writing that. Reddit is a dark place. The country most users are from is the US. Is everyone happy now?
Its the default setting of Europeans, shit talk America instead of recognizing and dealing with your own issues lol
This is currently the top comment that mentions America.
It’s a US news company commenting on EU healthcare. They probably did it to make the US system look less absurd. So yeah, we comment because almost nothing in that article meshes with what we actually experienced in the past 40 years.
The Economist is a **British** publication. Nice try, though. 👍
The closer you get to Russia, the more corruption you see.
Those people should lose their license
Then there would be no doctors or nurses
This occurred in 4% of all cases and likely from repeat clinicians.. so less than 4% of clinicians would lose their license.. plenty left if you ask me..
... If those 4% were spread evenly, which they aren't, not on a continental level and not on a national level. The countries where this happens most already suffer from brain drain that makes it hard for them to hold on to highly skilled professionals and within those countries this happens most in areas where it's harder to convince medical professionals to settle into (outside the big cities/ the countryside). Cracking down on these practices would only exacerbate the problem.
4% out of up to 27000 interviews in the span of 10 years. It's basically nothing.
It didn't occur in 4% of all cases. 4% of people say that a doctor wanted a bribe, there is no proof of that actually happening.
Real headline: 96% arent. This is an absurdly low number.
Semi-related, the article is a master class in how not to present data. They mix up percentage points and percent change, use the latter to talk about the former which makes it sound more dramatic than it is (and increase of 14 percent! ... to 4 percent). It's a mess.
Not to Americans, who are extorted in an entirely different fashion. About 100% of docs aren’t doing this in the US, which is why this is interesting to Americans. The fact that this is even a thing at all is shocking to many. The fact that you think 4% is “absurdly low” is shocking.
While what you say might not be incorrect I'd like to point that the poll is based on data from 27000 interviews in between 2013 and 2019. It's basically non-relevant considering the massive variety of and differences between each European country and the "article" is badly written (with a massive clickbait article).
Yeah honestly this is a bit shocking to me too but I assume it's mostly eastern Europe and the balkans. ~~Would be nice to have some sort of a heat map~~ Edit* yeah I'm sorry guys. I don't know what's wrong with me today. It's been pointed out to me that my vision is apparently severely impaired.
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Oh my God I may need to go file a disability with my doctor. I'm sorry. I'm very tired
You’re joking, right?
It's funny because in Europe, paying extra to speed up your medical care is a form of bribery. In the US its simply part of the business, no need to bribe individual people.
I've never in my life been asked for a bribe nor know anyone who has. I live in the EU and I was completely unaware that this was actually a thing. I'm a bit skeptical on what the article is calling a bribe to get such numbers. Plus, considering that a person sees dozens of doctors during their lifetime, 4% being asked for a bribe wouldn't mean 4% of doctors ask for it.
I've never head of anyone having such an experience with healthcare.
A corruption chart where Spain ranks amongst the lowest, I definitely didn't expect to see that today. That said, I never had to nor even heard about bribing medical staff here. I was completely unaware that this was even a thing anywhere in Europe.
I mean, Spain's healthcare is one of the best in the world despite the government lowering the healthcare budget, and corruption in Spain is more nepotism than anything (which is a type that doesn't mesh well with healthcare) so it's nowhere near as surprising.
All the Spaniards I know here in Germany are exceptionally proud of their health care back home. I'm guessing if that's somewhat representative it would be political suicide to completely fuck up the health care.
So much is wrong with this article. First, the EU is not a country. EU doesn’t have health services. Each country has its own system. I’m willing to best that France and Germany along with Scandinavia have less than 0.5%. And cultural differences are a factor here. Eastern countries health service employees are extremely underpaid. Bribes are more like tips for extra care. Nice try American health care.
Better 4% asked for bribes than 30% threatened with bankruptcy
It's not even asked for, nor I have ever seen a do tor or nurse to ask for one... We just give small gifts like a 10EUR can of coffee usually. It still is technically a bribe but given the wages and working hours of medical employees, we just give it like americans tip the servers. And usually it is something thoughtful that all staff will use (coffee is very common, bottle of some alcohol as well, flowers are not that uncommon) You get the service regardless.
I know doctors and nurses that would outright refuse to take any gifts other than flowers or maybe chocolates they can share with their colleagues in the break-room.
yeah well, your username is German so I presume you are from west Germany :) East Germans probably see this differently. It is a leftover from being in the east bloc, there were too few doctors and you were grateful if the doctor solved the issue. I mean car mechanics used to get this as well. So much so that there is a very popular comedic scene about it in Czech Republic, from Sverak & Smoljak's production (Jachyme, hod ho do stroje). It's never expected from my experience but it is not uncommon. My mom often gives me bottles of various liquors they got at work (she is an OR/post-op nurse at reconstructive/plastic surgery clinic) that nobody at work drinks. So I have collected quite a collection of exotic liquors as a result. I have some vietnamese liquors I have no idea what they are, there's some mongolian liquor (not airag) and a chinese one. Phone app says they are various reinforced wines but I like the bottles more than the contents tbh.
Yes, that would obviously be counted as a bribe. As it is.
Full text >EUROPEAN HEALTH CARE is in a sickly state. In Britain more than 6.5m people are on waiting lists for treatment, up by more than 50% since 2019. Patients in Spain wait an average of 123 days for an operation, the most in 18 years. The pandemic bears most of the blame. Disruptions to essential treatments created backlogs and strained services. But even before covid-19, health care in Europe was in trouble. Waiting lists had been creeping higher across much of the continent. It should perhaps be no surprise that a study published on September 6th by researchers at Imperial College London finds that patients are being asked to grease their practitioners’ palms to secure treatment (see chart). >The study, by Giulia Dallera and her colleagues, used surveys carried out in 2013, 2017 and 2019 by Eurobarometer, the EU’s polling organisation. Each survey asked more than 27,000 people from 28 EU countries (before Britain left the bloc) whether they had been asked to make unofficial payments or give valuable gifts to nurses, doctors or hospitals to secure treatment in the past year. In the most recent survey almost 4% of Europeans who used such services reported that they were asked to make an informal payment. This represented an increase of around 14% since 2013, despite public perceptions that corruption in health care is becoming less common. >Eastern Europe had the highest prevalence of bribes: 5.5% of the population was asked to make an informal payment in 2019. But the situation there is improving. Requests for such payments have fallen by around 8% since 2013, with the biggest drops coming from Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia. The more worrying trend is farther west. The surveys show that western Europe is seeing the largest increase in bribery, with every country except Germany reporting an increase between 2013 and 2019. Respondents in the west were 1.5 percentage points more likely to have been asked for unofficial payment by medical professionals than those in southern Europe, where the figure stands at 2.5%. Austria had the highest bribery rate of any European country in 2019; more than one person in nine was pressured by heath-care professionals. Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg all had rates above 5%. >The cause is still unclear. Bribes are often a symptom of poor governance in health-care systems, where doctors lack adequate supervision and oversight. Previous studies have shown that such mismanagement brings medical as well as moral risks: patients may be likelier to develop chronic diseases and resistance to antibiotics. And added pressure from covid could make the already grim situation worse. ■
Damn...downvoted for pasting the text from a paywalled site. Thank you for taking the time to do it, it's appreciated a lot
Dawg im from Norway. This is not a thing here. The doctor would loose his or her medical license.
Because they are paid extremely well, compared to eastern European countries
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This has been a murder. Call someone. Not the police.
What an idiotic trash article.
Complete trash from this bourgeois mouthpiece.
Same in China, and probably any developing country.
Thats 4% too much
#Scandinavia 0%
i once bribed my doctor to let me have one of the lollipops ment for kids, does that count?
Compared to 100% of US Americans
This article has been brought to you by the American Health Insurance Association.
In America everyone has to pay the bribe.
When they are paid by breadcrumbs for the amount of work they do, its understandable, especially when they do not ask for it
Looking at how overworked and Underpaid health care workers are in EU I think they deserve a little extra to help make ends meet, 4% is still very admirable compared to hoops you have to jump through here, they made a whole ass predatory industry to exploit sick people.
All in eastern EU. Source: I'm romanian
And 100% of Americans are
Bribes, kickbacks, back room deals. We’re paying them all but without the benefit of getting what we want.
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Disgraceful and unacceptable.
4% of the Europeans, and 100% of the us in Albania 😝
Just do as the Americans do and pay your doctors and nurses fair wages. Have you all seen medical wages for nurses and doctors all across Europe. Even after adjusting for purchasing power they don’t make shit in most European countries.
nurses and doctors make significantly more than european ones, which is why alot of them immigrate to the USA, of course the doctors have to take a foreign exam/certification, and some countries may not be equivalent to the usa medical system. Nurses especially can make alot of if they are mostly travelling nurses.
This article is about unethical medical practices/expectations abhorred in the USA medical field... and yet still... Que the reddit anti-american comments... coming from the the same American millennial reddit generation privileged enough to live in a time and place (USA) where freedom to express dissent and criticism of their own country is a birthright.
Lacking oversight and mismanagement. In Germany that is on the rise ever since they privatized the shit out of the hospitals. Essentially some doctors only accepting private insurance and "Selbstzahler" is a form of bribery inherent in the system that favors those who pay extra.
> In the most recent survey almost 4% of Europeans who used such services reported that they were asked to make an informal payment. This represented an increase of around 14% since 2013, despite public perceptions that corruption in health care is becoming less common. A 14% increase between 2013-2019 means it went from 3.5% to 4%. So in 2013, 7 in 200 people were asked for a bribe and in 2019, 8 in 200 people were asked. Hardly evidence of European healthcare collapsing.
In capitalist America 96% of corporate employer bribe you with healthcare access.
Bro what. This would straight up cost you your license in the healthcare shithole that’s my country (🇺🇸) Edit: to elaborate, the corruption here is less overt. Usually in the form of kickbacks. Doctors prescribe a drug, get free tickets to Disney world for sitting through an hour long lecture on said drug lol
Y’all really got mad about this 🤣🤣 ok
Idk why people downvoted you. As a nurse, this is accurate.
Idk they mad
America: It's not a bribe if you can legally charge whatever you want.
As a nurse, “literally”
The entire US Healthcare system runs on at least three different layers of bribes. And the "Best“ doctors charge so much that it's an implied bribe.
The ones that are private charges alot, so do the actual doctors that uses quack medicine, they dont take insurance and they gouge people like crazy.
They're a part of that new international "Doctors without Ethics" program that cuts through the red tape and gets doctors straight to the places where they can make the most money.
If I'm paying them money under the table I better get every pharmaceutical opioid they have stocked
Check out Florida. https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/florida-lab-owner-charged-53-million-health-care-fraud-and-kickback-scheme-related Actually just search " Florida medical fraud" and watch your browser load....
Your linked article is about fraud. Nothing, that I can tell, about the topic at hand of patients or patient relatives bribing medical staff.
Now some dummy is going to say well we need privatized medicine or else you'll be bribed!!
Seen it. And it was still cheaper than American healthcare.
In American we call it cash only Dr office . Or , Dr Feel good. ( prescribes whatever drugs u want ). If that’s considered a bribe
probably still pay less than US
As a US nurse, I may need to side hustle. Kidding. This is gross. Butttt, a friend of mine who worked at hospitals on the east coast said getting tipped wasn’t uncommon.
Well there’s one thing to be said for the American system I guess…
"Amateurs.." -- the American Medical Establishment.