Canada

Wait 7 years to get a family doctor. Wait 3 months to get an actual appointment. Lose family doctor. Rinse and repeat.

Portugal

If it doesn't require immediate attention I call my health center. I can get an appointment with my family pshysician in a few days or, if it's more urgent, some other doctor will see me the same day but I'll have to wait there until one is free (can go anywhere between 15mn and 2 hours). I'm lucky though, some health centers suck really bad. The ones in big cities are generally better.

If it's more urgent I call the national health line and they'll A: tell me how to treat it myself B: set up an appointment in my health center (or another if mine is not available) C: send me straight to the closest emergency room.

Wait times in the emergency room depend on the gravity and the hospital. My hospital sucks. Low priority you'll spend there the whole day, easy. 10+ hours. Medium priority you'll wait 4 or 5 hours. High priority about an hour, maybe two. Very high priority (head falling off) you go right in. In good hospitals those times are much lower. In the major city I used to live I never waited more than 2 hours for any priority. I also had surgery there and it was great.

Never paid a cent, I think it goes without saying.

France, not a big city. If I'm sick. I call the doctor office, in another city because all doctors here have no places. I may book an appointment in two or three weeks. If I really need a doctor, I can book an appointment to "sos doctor", that I will pay for a part (and part healthcare), or go to a non-vital emergency doctor at night, which is expensive (for a doctor in France) but reimbursed by healthcare. I can have access to this because I'm still in/near a city.

The waiting time in a doctor office can be long, depending if they take time for their patients or not. I'm ok with that. If I have an appointment to my usual doctor, I don't pay or I only pay a little part which will be reimbursed minus 1€ (50/year max). There are doctors with exceding fees, like "sos doctor", those feeds are out of my pocket. Most of the time, we have healthcare AND private insurance, but there is a health insurance for poor people.

For medecine, most of the times we don't pay anything but there are fees, 1€/medecine box (50/year max, but not the same as the 50 for doctors).

Canada, I make an appointment with my family doctor, usually within a week, free. Specialists are more annoying because our right wing provincial government keeps chipping away at public healthcare and justifying it with its own results, but generally goes pretty quick too.

Like going to a post office.

You walk in, show your health ID, get treated, then leave.

Edit: Assuming you're going to a hospital. Family doctor care is similar, although in my province they're contractors, and it can be hard to find one with an opening for new patients right now.

Oh, I just noticed it wait time was requested. It varies for family doctors; the local one that sucks can pretty much always get you in immediately. I'm with one that needs a couple days notice now, haha.

If you get referred to a specialist it's a long wait, like many months, and when you do go it's a human production line coordinated down to the second.

Norway, I book online if it's not urgent and wait a few weeks. If it's urgent I call them and get it same day. Costs about ~250 NOK or ~20 USD I think. Public doctors are always at least 45 minutes late (unless you are late if course, then they call you on time)

I also had a non-urgent matter, but felt like wait time was too long (holiday season) so I went to a private clinic, got appointment same day and paid about 700 NOK I think.

I go there, tell my story, if they need to take some samples they can usually do them on site right away for no additional charge.

If I need some medicine they prescribe that and tell me to come back in x weeks if it's not getting better.

If they can't help me I get a referral. It could take a long time to get certain procedures, especially if they are not urgent/very important, but most of the time it's been a few weeks for my issues.

Thailand. Private pay.

Take a ride share car to the private hospital.

Greeted by concierge when I walk in. She asks why I'm here and then directs me to another desk on another floor.

Entering the next room feels a bit like a hotel lobby. There are big sofas and comfortable lighting. It feels cozy even though it's a large space. There's a Starbucks. Another concierge approaches me. I explain why I'm here and I'm sat down and handed an iPad where I can fill in some medical background. They have my record from a previous visit so it's quick. I confirm that I will pay with a credit card instead of using any insurance.

In about 10 minutes I'm brought to a room where a nurse catches my weight and blood pressure. Then I'm brought to the patient exam room.

A few minutes later the doctor comes in and performs his examination. He makes his diagnosis types some notes into his computer. He asks me to come back for a follow-up in one week and pick up my prescription on the way out.

Leaving the exam room, another nurse catches me to hand me the diagnosis paperwork and points me to the pharmacy.

I walk to the pharmacy and hand them my paperwork. They collect my payment for the whole visit and ask me to wait until my name is called to pick up the prescription.

About 10 minutes later the prescription is ready and I'm out the door with a small bag of drugs and about $125 out of my wallet.

The service is comprehensive and everything is available in one building. For this country it's a bit expensive but you feel like you're very well taken care of and it's instant.

Switzerland

Depends a bit on the plan you have. Generally I would call the clinic registered with my health insurance or fill in their online form to make an appointment. Depending on what it is you get an appointment within the week, but for more pressing issues it's usually on the same day.

If it's an emergency I can go to any hospital or clinic, but depending on my insurance I would be transfered after the acute symptoms are taken care of.

If for some reason I'm not anywhere close to my registered clinic, I have to call a 24/7 number to get a referral to a doctor nearby.

Prices are reasonable for the high level in Switzerland. Deductibles limits handle how much you have to pay out of pocket, so it rarely fucks you up.

The real issue is the ever increasing insurance premiums. They are not tied to your income level, but to where you live, your gender and age. Poorer people get support by the government, but that's just tax money flowing directly into private insurance companies.

It's immensely expensive!
I went to the doctor and he charged me 1 euro.
The imaging in the hospital and the orthopedist only cost 2.8 euro.
So they're really leeching it.

But seriously it's difficult to get an appointment and nowhere do they take new patients.
Smart government decided on a numerus clausus and now there aren't enough doctors.
The ones that are there lately don't want to work fulltime, so even less availability.

Australian here from Victoria. Going to the GP will cost me around $80 up front and I get around $50 back from Medicare later. This is for about a 30 minute consultation with a doctor. The wait time is rarely longer than 15 minutes but it really depends on the practice. I've waited 2+hours for a GP that was fully covered by Medicare.

Brazil

An USian journalist recently described his health care treatment in Brazil: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/29/brazil-health-care-sus-hospitals/

I believe this is a good description of the public health care here. I disagree with his statement on workers' strike. He didn't mention that Bolsonaro and Temer (last 2 presidents) reduced spending in public health care which probably impacted the hospital this journalist got taken care.

Honestly depends.

If it's life or death urgent, an ambulance arrives, takes you away and with any luck, fix you right up. Visitors will likely have to pay to park at the hospital, and that will be your biggest expense. When my dad had a cardiac arrest, it was during covid, so the parking was free. The biggest expense was cleaning his blood off the carpets and putting their cat in the cattery for a week.

If it's something non-urgent, and the cause isn't immediately found by a doctor, then you might go on a waiting list and be seen in a few months maybe. And even then it might not get sorted. It's not like House.

The most annoying bit is the 8am phone roulette to try and get an appointment.

We go to see a private doctor.

Here in Costa Rica you have to wait like 5 hours to get attended on a public hospital.

For the appointment you have to pay like $50 plus medications

Costa Rica : You can have an appointment the same or the next day, and appointmens can be requestet online, by phone or getting to the nearest medical medical center. Costa Rica's social security covers everything, from medication to surgery and you are covered for the next theree months if you lose your job. There are few surgeried that are not practiced in the country as some may need technology that we do not have. The cons of Costa Ricas social health's service is that for some processes the waiting lines are very long and could take even a year or more. Might not be as good as european social health's services, but for a third world country I think is not any bad.

I've lived in multiple places, so I'll talk about all of them.

Brazil

I lived in two places there, essentially you can choose between public or private systems.

Under the private system you would book an appointment with whatever doctor you wanted, usually one or two weeks in advance, pay them (which is relatively expensive depending on the doctor), have the consultation, they might ask for some exams (some of which are paid, others included), possibly get a prescription (that you would have to pay for yourself), possibly go back for a follow up appointment (included in the price you already paid).

On the public system you book an appointment, wait some time (months in some places, days in others), have your consultation (if the doctor is in that day), possibly get a prescription (that you would likely get for free), possibly go back for a follow up appointment.

Ireland

There's a public system, but you have to be below a certain income level to use it, otherwise you have to go through the private system. You have to register with your GP (most of which don't have available spots), for anything you first need to contact your GP (which usually takes a week), and pay €60, explain your problem and if they choose to forward you to and specialist (even if you go and say I need to see a cardiologist they might say "no, you do not", although that's unlikely), then they send an email to the specialist who only then accepts that you book with them (usually for a week or so later), then you have to pay the specialist (which is usually >€300), they might ask for some exams (which you have to book and pay on your own, some blood work I did was €700), they might give you a prescription (which is paid but there's a €80 cap on medicine per house per month, which is the only nice part of the whole system), and if you need a follow up it's usually €150. If you have health insurance (or at least mine was like this) they give you back 50% of all your expenses up to a certain limit.

Spain

I'm not too familiar with the options here because I have private insurance through my work and as you'll see I've had no reason to look elsewhere, but I've been told the public system is fairly similar. Whenever I need an appointment I open my insurance app or call a doctor office and ask if they take my insurance, book an appointment (usually for a week or two in advance), go there, show my id and insurance card, go to the appointment, if they ask for some exams I do them, if they give me a prescription I take it to a pharmacy and pay it out of pocket (this is the only part I know public system exists and is somewhat better because you get the drugs for free, but since I don't take any recurring prescriptions I haven't bothered to check), if I need a follow up I book it and go back. Never had to pay one cent for anything other than medicine. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop and getting billed for all of the Dr appointments, but so far it hasn't happened hahaha