I have not reported on my work on the handrail for a while. The reason is that I cut myself with a knife during the work so I have not been able to do as much as I wished I had done.

Suddenly the knife slipped, cut through the glove and I had a two centimetre long and 5 mm deep cut in my hand just where the palm meets the wrist. It was Saturday 11. 45 A.M. and in France lunch is something sacred and I was bleeding quite a lot. Where do I get a doctor at this time of the day? We phoned the local doctor; the wife answered and said “just come over”. I put a bit of toilet paper on it and wrapped duct tape around it and off we went. There were a few people in the waiting room so I had to wait for 20 minutes.

The doctor looked at it and said: “I think we need a few stitches here, do you need any anaesthetics for that?” “No”, I said, “not really, it can’t be too painful.” It was not too bad. I got a recipe on some material to clean it with and some bandage. He asked me to come back on Monday to get a new bandage and a shot against tetanus because the pharmacy was closed so we could not get it on a Saturday.

The health care in our home country Sweden is quite good, but in Gothenburg it would have taken about 8 hours before we had got any help at the emergency. Here in France I was back home within an hour. The doctor charged 22 Euros, which is his fee. At the pharmacy it did not cost anything.

We went to the dentist the other day, my wife and I. We both got our annual control and the dentist took away the plaque on our teeth. On top of that I had a chipped tooth that she fixed. The cost for both of us was 54 Euros and that is what the dentist charge for it. If we go to the social security we get some refund.  In Sweden we would have paid at least 250 Euros for the same treatment.

Public health care in France is very good. In a study in Europe they have found that France has the best health care and Sweden the second best. The problem in Sweden is to get access to it; you have to wait for ages. The technical quality is about the same though. The costs for public health care are cheaper for simple things in France but more generous when you really have those serious problems in Sweden. In France however most people have a private insurance. If you have one of those, treatments are almost free. Medication is free, you get support for glasses and contact lenses and dental treatment. You can also get massage and other therapy for free. The amazing thing is that for me and my wife who are over 60 it cost us only 100 Euros/year to have such insurance. Another amazing thing is that it is illegal for the insurance companies to investigate in people’s medical history and you do not have to sign a health declaration. It makes sense as if they did not have those laws only healthy people could have an insurance, but where else in the world does authorities make sensible decisions?

Anyway, it is now Christmas and after that we will go to Cuba on vacation so it will be very little done with the handrail for a while. We like to go to Cuba before it becomes democratic and see Castro’s old Cuba. We fear that, in a near future, after a liberation the US and South American mafia will take over so it will be dangerous to go there. Being Scandinavians we have seen what happened to the former Soviet Union that now spread trafficking, prostitution, drugs, weapons, contract murders and other “signs of freedom” to the rest of Europe. That is no place you want to go to on vacation.

Merry Christmas to everybody!