I can't get this out of my head, so sorry, but I'm going to write about it here.
I have some German cousins, who I used to see quite a lot of when they were small; lately I see them only occasionally.
Anyway, back in September, the eldest son of my German aunt and uncle caught a cold. The cold spread to his sinuses. From there it spread to his blood. Somehow it then ate away at his heart valves. It turns out that this is very very bad for you.
So he went into hospital, was pumped full of drugs, put into an induced coma, and they then replaced one of the valves with a stainless steel one and stitched up the other.
Apparently the choices are pig heart valves, stainless steel, or carbon fibre. Obviously as a cyclist, I would have gone for the CF ones, but steel is still real in Germany, so SS it was.
I didn't go to visit him as it's a long way to go to see someone in a coma. Mistake.
The operation went ahead, and the prognosis was apparently good (he could have had all sorts of organ failure problems, or even brain damage, but no, it was all fine).
Then we heard that the SS valve had fallen out. A few days later they switched him off.
<insert a number of expletives that would get me banned>.
But it didn't end there. I went along to the funeral in Germany (turns out it was actually quite easy to get there). It was an amazing event. His former girlfriend is a force of nature, and had organized two choirs to sing, followed by a party in a pub.
Here I learned the scary bit. It turned out that my cousin had been a bit haphazard in his financial affairs.
In particular, the German healthcare system is not like the NHS. You don't get free treatment. Instead what happens is that everyone must take out health insurance, and pay premiums. This then covers your care.
Except that my cousin had not taken out any insurance. Whether he simply forgot, or thought that he'd never get ill and so didn't want to waste money, we will never know.
By some quick action on the part of my uncle, he had been able to get into hospital in the first place, but he wasn't actually covered for the treatment he received.
As you can imagine, having your chest cut open, valves put in, and stitched back up again, does not come cheap. Just as well he had the steel valves and not the CF valves, but even with that saving, the cost of the treatment was a six figure number.
You would imagine that when he died, his debts died with them.
You would imagine wrong.
The insurance company pursued my aunt and uncle for the debt. Fortunately you can decline to inherit someone's estate, which they did. They then went after my other cousins, who also declined, and just the other day my parents were contacted. I'm expecting to receive a letter in the post from Germany informing me about this and the mechanics involved in declining an inheritance. Apparently a trip to the German embassy should sort it out. And then they might give up.
I'm not angry about this. I guess they're just doing their job. But it's pretty cr*p. And it's an interesting perspective on how alternative health care systems work.
If my cousin had survived, then he would now be living for the rest of his life with a massive debt, although maybe he could have come to the UK and got one of those insolvency things.
Pretty rubbish all round.
Right, I've got that off my chest. Now I can go for a bike ride.
