There are two issues here: one is the structure of the health care and the second is that of health professionals.
The design of the French health care is IMO a good compromise between private and public. Nearly all GPs are independent workers, you pay them, and you are then reimbursed (70% of the consultation price and 100% for the poorest) by the social security system. Lots of GPs are fed up of working alone so more and more are organizing collective practices (which can be entirely organized by the GPs; or by a town, a charity...) You can choose your GP without any restriction.
Public hospitals are the propriety of local organizations (one town or several towns). There are also many private hospitals (generally smaller than public hospitals) and you can choose where you want to go, you'll be reimbursed whether it is a private (except for some private hospitals which choose to add extra charges) or a public hospital.
So there's nothing like the monolithic NHS in France. Some public hospitals are really good; some are awful. Some private hospitals are very innovative and offer a better service than public ones, some are just here to make money, some are just badly handled. There are of course downsides to the system, but it would be complicated to explain.
In terms of the care you receive for "recognized" pathology, it really depends on the doctor you'll meet. But generally, I think it is good. And quick. The proof being that there have always been lots of UK patients coming to France for medical tourism, because delays where way shorter than in the UK. And I've spoken to some British living in France, and they said the system here was better than the NHS. (As a Brit living in France, what do you think
@Marco ?).
This system has been deteriorating these last years, and there are more and more problems, amongst them a big political one.
On the side of doctors themselves now.
I think we are coming from a very, very patronizing, hierarchical and sexist tradition. Things have been changing since the 1960’s, patients are more and more heard by the system, but France has certainly not been a leader in that movement. And many doctors are still discriminating female, obese, foreign patients. Nonetheless from what I read, that is the case in many countries. Is France worst? Difficult to tell. I, personally, have met both great doctors and horrible ones. (fifty fifty)
For a comparison with Canada,
@Dechi , I can just repeat what I’ve read: patients from Canada amazed by the speed of care in France, patients from France appalled by the slowness of care in Canada. But generally, doctors seem to have a reputation of being way more progressive in Canada.
The care of PwME is another question, as the disease is not at all recognized here, there are certainly less doctors that are knowledgeable than in the UK and US. ME is treated as an undifferentiated somatization disorder.
Edit: overall, from what I've been reading about different health care systems, appart from really bad ones, they all have their pros and cons. The US one is really bad for poor people, but there seems to be more freedom which allowed doctors to start taking care of PwME, which was really impossible in other parts of the world. And medical research in the US (well, untill the trumpian era) has always been leading.
But everyone seems to think their system is the best of the world!
