Dear Swiss Reddit,
Me and my family are about to relocate to Switzerland in about 2 months. Currently, I’m trying to figure out what is the best option for Health Insurance and find a Pediatrician, because we have a specific situation. My daughter has "Hereditary spherocytosis" (https://www.onkopedia-guidelines.info/en/onkopedia/guidelines/hereditary-spherocytosis-spherocytic-anemia/@@guideline/html/index.html)
She is 3 years old and our current process in our home country is fairly simple. Whenever she gets sick – we go to the local Private Blood Test facility(there are plenty of them here) and we pay so they can do a blood test of her to check her hemoglobin. Whenever we get the results(Usually in a couple of hours) we call our Pediatric hematologist and we discuss the situation. If needed we go to the state-owned hospital and do another test there, If needed there is a blood transfusion, because of her low hemoglobin if not we go home happy and maybe do another test in few days to make sure the hemoglobin levels got up.
As far as I researched there aren’t that many places in Switzerland where we can simply walk in and have a blood test, so I guess the process is more complicated.
I was hoping someone here would be able to recommend an entity or a doctor that I could reach out to so we can discuss this topic. Best possible scenario is to have someone who has the same situation and can advise what they have been doing.
We will be living in the Canton of Bern. Somewhere near Biel/Bienne.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/comments/1dsn9oy/pediatric_hematologist_blood_tests_and_hereditary/
Posted by mitkoDimitrov94
3 Comments
Your best bet would be calling the pediatric hospital in Bern and get an appointment with the pediatric haematologist there. They will be able to help you with all further steps.
The first thing you should do is visit a GP or pediatric clinic and ask them. They will have far better knowledge of the issue and the locally available infrastructure. Testing for hemoglobin levels may be sth. a pharmacy might be capable of doing as well, else wise there may “walk in labs”. Definitely first consult a doctor before trying to figure it out in yourselves in a completely foreign country.
For insurance, choose the standard model as this makes it easier for you to go directly to a paediatrician of your choice without the delay of seeing a GP first.
For a blood test, you can go directly to a GP or walk in clinic (if it’s urgent) and they will take the blood and either perform the test in house or courier it to a lab. In general we don’t have separate clinics that just do blood tests, they are always performed at a regular clinic.