Trying to trust Dutch doctors but not liking their recommendations?

Change GP?

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

Just asked my wife (she's a Dutch practice nurse).  She says if you're not happy with your doctor, then you can change, but other doctors may have queues for new patients, so you may have to wait.

With regards to the diagnoses offered by the doctors, suffice to say, she is not a fan of Dr Google and said it's better to ask a doctor who can examine your symptoms than a group of strangers on the Internet.

Probably hasn't helped much, but I wish you the best of luck in getting this resolved.

Cynic
Expat Team

Dailydalek wrote:

Hi,

I know Dutch medicine is rated high in the world. I'm overall happy with my care. However I've seen a new gp that is shattering my trust in the system. She doesn't seem to listen to my complaints.

If you google information on the Dutch Health Care System, you will find a lot of worrying posts from expats about their experiences with the health care system here.

I have been reading these posts since the internet was in its infancy. Unfortunately, pages of the frustrations of many expats with the Dutch health care system that were originally posted on Expatica have now been removed when the forums were closed down (with also the majority of the many comments in the 'Health' section on that same site first being hidden for a few years, before finally being removed). But some of the remaining comments were captured before they too were deleted here (see post from Karen Grigoryan):

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-health … nd-callous 

From what I have read, heard from other people (including Dutch) about their own experiences here, if you don't trust how you are being diagnosed/treated even after seeing specialists, then do as many of the Dutch do, and head across the border to a neighbouring country (when I used to work in Amsterdam 20 years ago, I had a German colleague who would often get on the train to Dusseldorf to see a doctor/go to the hospital!)