19 Health

When you are ill, so you have to visit a doctor. Everybody in our country has the right to choose a doctor. There are two types of them, state and private doctors. Medical care is provided for our citizens from birth to death. Even before the birth there is prenatal care including medical check-ups and then maternity services. Soon after birth each child is vaccinated against such illnesses as tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and later smallpox. Each school child is under medical supervision, which means also a series of preventive medical and dental check ups, where the body is examined, teeth checked and eyesight tested. Common children's diseases are cold, measles, mumps or chicken pox. The most common disease of all is cold, flu, tonsillitis, bronchitis or pneumonia. When you have flu. When you have a flue, you usually have a temperature, sore throat, cough and you snooze very often. You also have a headache and feel very weak and sick and even hoarse. You can go through it easily by staying in bed taking pills, keeping warm, sweating, gargling and drinking herbal tea with honey or lemon. But overcoming the illness can be very dangerous and the illness can became very serious and can have dangerous after-effects. When you feel unwell, you can see a physician doctor called General practitioner (GP). You can make an appointment with the doctor in his surgery time and you avoid of long waiting in the waiting room, which is often overcrowded. When the nurse comes out, you have to give her your insurance card and then she invites you to a consulting room. The doctor usually asks what the trouble is and then asks us to strip to the waist, because he must examine our chest and throat. He also wants to know if we have a temperature, a good appetite and here you feel pain. Then he listens to our lungs and heart. He also wants us to open our mouth and say “Ah” to see if our tonsils are red. Sometimes he checks the blood pressure and the pulse, takes the blood or asks us to give him urine for lab tests. Finally the doctor diagnoses the case and therapy and prescribes a medicine. With prescriptions you go to pharmacy (at the chemist's) and get antibiotics, vitamins pain relievers, ointment, syrup, herbs for a tea, spray, drops or gargle. Sometimes the GP send us to specialists: oculist, ear and throat specialist, and gynaecologist or for an X-ray examination. In more serious cases, if you get injured, you can call the doctor to home or to the palace of the accident. You can be taken to hospital by an ambulance. In case of unconsciousness of heart attack the patient is put on a stretcher. In a very serious car accident the patient can be taken to hospital by a special helicopter. Sometimes it is necessary to give first aid such as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or to stop the bleeding or fix fractures. In the hospital the injured people are examined and X-rayed at a casualty ward and serious cases are immediately operated in the operating room. There are many departments: internal, surgical, dental, eye, dermatology, ear and throat, gynaecologist and a department for children. If the operation is planed, patient must pass several tests and the just before the operation he is anaesthetised by means of an injection of narcotic. After the operation a scar often remains. The patient is sometimes sent to a health resort or a spa for rehabilitation. There he undergoes water treatment, takes baths, massage, remedial exercises and drinks the waters. Not all illnesses can be cured. There are fatal illnesses like cancer or AIDS, which are incurable so far. But the best way to cure such an illness is not to catch it, because prevention is better than cure. You can keep your health by physical training, hardening the body, sporting, sufficient sleep, balanced diet and avoiding smoking cigarettes, stress and drinking big amount of alcohol.