April, 2004

I was doing some late-night admin in my office when I heard Olivia run downstairs. “Daddy,” I heard her say to Rupert, who was watching the news.

“There’s a big, big problem.”

So far I was still only half listening. It was the next sentence that had me jumping from my chair, screaming as I ran upstairs.

“The torch fell out of bed and Bea has got blood on her head.”

I found Bea in the bathroom with Monica, the au pair, who was trying to stem the relentless flow of blood. The torch had fallen from the top bunk onto her forehead.

My husband and the au pair were a lot calmer than me. In fact Bea was a lot calmer than me. I rang my doctor who said she might need stitches. So off we went to the local hospital, with Bea wrapped in a blanket. Visions of similar situations at hospitals in London came to me.
“We’ll be there for at least four hours,” I said to Rupert. “Why didn’t I bring a book?”

We parked right outside the door of the Polyclinique Pasteur in Pézenas and rang the emergency bell. A nurse came and opened the door and led us to an operating theatre. There seemed to be no one else in the hospital. After about five minutes a young doctor arrived looking very cool in his surgeon’s kit and black scarf. He greeted us all and looked at the wound. It was like a scene from ER.

“She’ll have a small scar,” he said. “But with stitches it will be minimal.”

Bea looked horrified.

“Don’t worry,” said her father as they placed a gas mask on her face. “You’ll still be a supermodel.”

The nurse asked Bea to blow into the balloon. After a few seconds she started giggling, and then she fell asleep. About half an hour later we were home. The whole thing, including getting there and back, took less than an hour. Admittedly we live near a small town, so maybe we were shielded from the crowds of drunks and drug addicts one would find in any major metropolis, but the point is, in England, there wouldn’t have been a hospital there.

The French pride themselves on their health system. And it is true that after giving birth here (twice) and living with three small children, I have been very impressed with it. It seems to mix the private and public in a way that the English hasn’t been able to. But getting onto the system is a total nightmare, and the subject of several letters from readers.

If you live here and want to be covered you need to contribute to the Sécurité Sociale. This entitles you and your dependants to medical treatment. The contribution you make will depend on what you earn but is usually around 18% of taxable income. Your employer will pay this automatically. If you are self-employed you need to register at your local Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie. The Sécurité Sociale will cover between 75% and 90% of costs and the patient is liable for the remainder. We have a private insurance company (called a mutuelle or complemtaire) which covers this portion and costs us around £60 per month for the whole family. If you’re retired then you need to get an E121 form from the NHS. This will entitle you to the same healthcare as a French pensioner.

If you’re moving to France contact the Centre for Non-Residents in Newcastle on 0191 225 4811. Get as many forms as possible. I found having lots of bits of paper helped during my year-long struggle to get us registered. And there was a brilliant form that covered me for childbirth (fairly essential as I was eight months pregnant when we left England). For those of you with holiday homes, the most practical thing is still the E111, which is a simple form you fill in at the post office. This way you have to pay for health care up front, but you get refunded from the NHS once you get home.
We kept Bea at home the day after the torch incident. At one stage I went to check on her. She was playing with Monica and her Barbie dolls. She was holding a particularly stunning example of a Barbie doll with fluorescent pink hair and a princess dress. Monica was holding Ken.

“If you don’t love me any more,” Bea’s Barbie was telling Ken, “then I’m going to tell my mummy.”

I think she is going to be all right.

Children travelling alone

Sarah Knollys from London writes to me to ask how she can best send her children Hugo and Julia, aged nine and 11 to see their father in the south of France. “They used to go with BA,” she writes. “But they recently introduced a fee of about £30 each way for each child if they fly unaccompanied.” Air France rather cleverly hides the fee in the fare, so effectively you don’t get a child discount, consequently the fares are no cheaper than BA. On Ryan Air children are charged full fare after 23 months but cannot fly alone until they are 14. There is no service for unaccompanied minors. Children under the age of 12 cannot travel alone on Eurostar, but between the ages of 12 and 16 they can, as long as they have a letter of consent from a guardian. On Eurostar children go free up until the age of four and child fares from London to Paris start at £25.

Capital Gains Tax addition

Although my piece last month on capital gains tax was correct as far as France is concerned, I want to make it clear that UK residents will still have to declare the sale of any property in the UK for UK capital gains tax purposes. An allowance or credit given will be given for the tax already paid in France.