What’s vaginal health care like in your country?

F

faithfullyhis4ever

New member
A few friends and I have found over the past few years of traveling or moving to another country, that getting different kinds of care for our vaginas is way more complicated (or not as complicated) as we originally thought.

For e.g. one friend needs birth control pills to manage cysts, and wound up developing new ones after waiting weeks for her pills to be sent from the US and cleared through EU customs. It turned out that a visit to an English-speaking doctor and buying birth control at a local pharmacy would've been doable for her.

Another friend was unaware for several days (but then informed) that she could get her dislodged IUD taken out for free while she was traveling in the UK. The list goes on.

So we're setting up a blog on vaginal health care around the world - including what you have to do to get birth control, treatments for infections, testing, pregnancy care, etc.

Is anyone open to sharing what it's like accessing those sorts of health care in the country/ies you've lived or travelled in?

Any piece of info shared in this thread would be very helpful!

Please be advised that any answers will be shared to the blog and our instagram. For privacy reasons, respondents will only be identified by a random letter and their city name (e.g. K in Amsterdam) or as they ask to be identified.

Thanks in advance! :)
 
@faithfullyhis4ever When I lived in South Korea I could choose from several birth control pills and just buy them for 7-15 dollars a pack, without a prescription, over the counter at the grocery store pharmacy. I don’t think I even needed to provide my alien registration card, and didn’t need to answer any questions.

Getting a Mirena put in cost me ~350$, primarily for the cost of the system. This also included transvaginal ultrasounds to check perfect placement, and the cost of antibiotic suppositories.

Going in for checkups post insertion was usually around 40$, again including transvaginal ultrasounds and really professional care from a great doctor who did her best to communicate with me (my Korean wasn’t great).

All was with the national health insurance plan. I paid about 15$ a month for it, and my employer contributed too.
 
@faithfullyhis4ever I live in the UK and contraception is always completely free. Obviously most of our health care is free but you pay for prescriptions unless you can’t afford it (e.g. you’re a student or unemployed etc.), although it is a fixed price of £9 regardless of the medication, and I think there are other exemptions like you don’t have to pay for diabetes medication etc. But any kinda of contraception is free, and relatively easy to access. Also it means your parents don’t have to know if you’re under 18 and want to go on the pill or something, they’ll only be informed if you’re considered at risk in some way or of course if you want to tell them.
 
@weaknessofflesh Also, that it doesn't matter what age you are ANY woman can get emergency contraception for free! I've had many friends shocked when I tell them I've never paid, I just go to the GUM clinic, ellaone isn't cheap either. There are a few ad campaigns like those for the c-card and the age ranges for Chlamydia and sti etc screening saying you need to be 16-25 and I guess maybe that confuses people beyond that age, but that's only a few external services. BC is always free on the NHS as you've said
 
@frontier Ive heard so many awful stories about medical costs in America. I have an aunt in the US who is in 10s of thousands of dollars of debt because of medical costs, never understand why she doesn’t move back to the UK
 
@faithfullyhis4ever I'm from Croatia.

I'm fairly new to birth control, I've started it in April last year. To say the least, it's been a roller coaster. If you're prone to infections, birth control might make it worse for you. I had to wait for an appointment very long, and then every next appointment aswell. Or, I had to explain my problems over the phone (it was basically the same problem every time) if I didn't want to wait in line for over an hour because the waiting room was always PACKED. This is the first time I've heard about birth control, no one mentions the benefits or the risks in sex ed. It's highly shameful because it could help so many young girls.

The good news is, it's fairly cheap. For a broke student like me, 60 kunas(around 8$) a month is duable. I'm on Yaz and it changed my skin and the amount of pain, but it takes a toll on the mental health.

Edit: Public healthcare is free, so the appointments are covered by the health insurance. You have to cover a fee when buying pills. BUT, I'm not even sure if IUDs and birth control besides pills are even available, or if you have to pay. No one talks about it unless you specifically ask your doctor.
 
@ariamadison I took Yaz between ages 16 to 25, and I had huge mental issues cause of them, and my libido was super low as well. I recently swapped to another "lighter" pill but i feel like these ones take a toll on my mental health as well. And they make me develop a fat belly even tho I still weigh exactly the same :(
 
@faithfullyhis4ever I live in Canada and my experience has been great.

I first brought up getting birth control back in March and I immediately was sent to get blood tests to make sure all reproductive hormones were good, I had no UTIs or STIs, and I wasn’t pregnant.

Everything was great except for my LH hormone levels which I was immediately sent for another blood testing and everything was fine with it.

I was pretty set on getting an IUD (hormonal) when I first brought up birth control but I was still told about my other options and given lots of information about their pros and cons. In the end the IUD was seen as the best fit for me because of the fact that I suffer from chronic migraines.

I didn’t decide fully on getting my IUD until late July because I was pretty scared and it was pretty daunting as I had never had any professional look at my lady bits before (I’m 19). I was immediately referred to a obgyn and had my appointment at the end of August only because she was on vacation.

My insertion experience was pretty great, the gyno I went to actually has an informative YouTube channel which I used to prep for my insertion.

My IUD was the only thing I had to pay for and because of my insurance (mandatory by my uni) I had 60% of the price covered. However the gyno appointment and insertion is all covered by out health care system.

I had another check up a month following the insertion because my gyno likes to do that and it was also quite fast and efficient.

When I’m 21 I’m going to start getting Pap smears and other check ups and it’s all covered again because woohoo Canada.

I have friends who have taken the pill and other forms of birth control and that is usually done through their family doctor or any GP really. I know people from outside of Canada who were able to easily get BC by seeing doctors here but they do have to pay seeing as they are not citizens. However they’ve had blood work and other testing completed for free.

Pregnant women also get their tests and checkup done for free and most women are seen at least once a month to make sure everything is all good throughout their pregnancies and most abnormalities are covered and handled right away.
 
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