CPAM Blues

Longtime readers of this blog will be familiar with the saga of my attempts to be registered with the French medical insurance scheme, the CPAM. Without their card, the carte vitale, life (and even death, probably) becomes very problematic.

My two year cover from the UK, via E106, took all of eighteen months to come through at the CPAM end (despite my impeccable paperwork from Newcastle), and, having hardly started, has now lapsed. Did the CPAM, despite my many requests, inform me how to transfer to the entirely French cover? No. Did they inform me my card was being invalidated? No. They left me entirely and unrepentantly in the lurch. The list of their carelessness and callousness is endless.

Given that I am not yet sound enough to endure the long wait, the BH is presently queuing in the grim CPAM building in Antibes, to see how I can get transferred to the most basic, no frills French system (CMU). It will probably take as long again, and in the meantime not only are we financially exposed, but each medical issue is blown out of all proportion by the amount of supplementary paperwork and hassle.

Her first contact with the kind of office that, from my experience, routinely scorns and mistreats foreigners is likely to put her in a foul state of mind.