Doctors are sounding the alarm. Across France patients are unable to get appointments and wait times in hospital emergency departments have been known to stretch to more than two days. In Nantes, such was the backlog that four people died in emergency rooms over just a three-week period while waiting to be admitted.
This is a system stretched far beyond capacity. France’s hospitals are buckling, not because of a pandemic or a natural disaster, but some say because the country offers free, lifelong medical care, and often residency, to anyone from abroad with a serious illness.
People are arriving in France from Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and even the United States, simply because they are entitled to free healthcare
France’s healthcare system is still ranked among the best in the world, at least on paper. But that reputation masks a widening chasm between promise and delivery, especially in Paris and other big cities.
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