It is useless to deny that all of us expatriates&Facebook users are part of the groups “Italian in somewhere”. Italians in Manchester or Italians in New York, it makes no difference: the dramas that are consumed daily on these sites are always the same.
Basically people ask where to eat a good pizza, where to buy Nonno Nanni cheese, where to buy Pavesini biscuits, Pane degli Angeli yeast, where to find an Italian beautician or a woman who repairs the zip (woman, and Italian, because foreign is not capable) or a man who puts the wooden floor (man and Italian).
These are the FAQs.
Small virtual communities are created in these groups, a trend that emigrants have always had. And there is nothing wrong, people all around the world have always done it.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with being part of a group of Italian immigrants in Canada in 1972. Maybe a single person who didn't know a word of English, who was sick of eating moose 365 days a year, far far away from home…
Being in Cambridge in 2021, with whatsapp, skype, amazon, ryanair that takes you to Italy for 20 euros in a couple of hours… doesn't seem like an adventurous life.
Above all makes me laugh the trust that is placed in compatriots. Which are basically the same Italians who forced you to leave Italy to try to make a better life elsewhere.
But let's get to the anomaly.
On these Facebook groups, in addition to the aforementioned questions, one topic rules: total dissatisfaction / distrust / despair / anxiety towards the British NHS.
Which pours out in pure hatred towards its representative, the GP (general practitioner).
Enraged men and (especially) women constantly write in search of support to tell about their terrible misadventures, always similar: the child took a fever (38.1) and the GP did not give him the antibiotic. How can it be? The GP said to take paracetamol!
Hundreds of messages of support follow against bad doctors who leave Italian children to die. Dozens of mythological tales like the time a cousin had his leg amputated with an electric saw and the doctor told him to take paracetamol. Or that time that one had taken dengue + yellow fever and the doctor prescribed paracetamol.
An infinite lament until the big request: by any chance do any of you have antibiotics to give me?
At this point, you will not believe it, but many respond.
The pushers. They offer their personal stash of amoxicillin brought from home.
I can see those boots in their suitcases, full of amoxicillin. And the guys of airport security who see everything in X-rays, but they know us and don't even ask questions anymore.
In short, the pusher on duty responds to offer a dose of the medicines he has at home, and the applicant is normally super happy and ACCEPTS.
That is, accepting:
a) medical opinions from totally unknown not doctors, but ITALIANS;
b) medicines, often antibiotics, often to be given to minors, by totally unknown but ITALIANS;
c) to give the address and meet totally unknown but ITALIANS.
It is quite anomalous, let's face it.
I really don't know what is their experience at home.
But we are people who come from places where people die in the hospital from appendicitis, where you have to go privately to get a blood test. Where, however, all the medical tests cost you like gold. Where if you show up in an emergency room when there is a football match they will insult even the mother of the mother of the mother of your grandmother.
Is it possible to know where did they do all these happy experiences with the Italian health system?
I understand that here in the UK the first step, that of the GP, is sometimes a bit stiff: you often find yourself in front of kids who graduated 25 minutes earlier, a three-year degree, and are looking on Google to help you. It is also true that your time with the doctor is 8 minutes, whether you have a wart or cancer.
But there is no comparison with our disastrous Italian health system. There is no comparison, believe me!
I'm going to tell a story of a lived life. A few weeks ago I called the doctor about an annoying little thing. It was 10.15 in the morning. At 11.30 I took a urine sample to the doctor's office and went back to work. At 2:00 pm the doctor called me with the result of my test and sent the prescription to the pharmacy closest to my home.
At 4.00 pm I went to collect the medicine I was supposed to take at the pharmacy, precisely an antibiotic.
Well… SPOT THE DIFFERENCE…
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