Image from: www.plateforme-elsa.org
In another addition to my (hopefully) ongoing series of Clinic Reviews, we are graced by a review by my senior Parisian Clinic Expert, “Frenchy McFrenchfry.” Obviously her name has been changed to protect her identity, but I am incredibly excited to post her review of what seems to be a fantastic and revolutionary, if not at times unethical, sexual health clinic in Paris. Please to be enjoy.
I am a fairly straight female, and I went to a clinic in Paris, France. It’s a clinic run by the Mouvement Français de Planning Familial (French Movement for Family Planning), or MFPF. I waited maybe an hour to get in and see the doctor, but not because they were very busy. A woman came into the waiting room where I was discussing politics with a new waiting-room buddy and welcomed us into a kind of conference room next door. Once the room was sufficiently filled with nervous-looking French girls, two counselors came in and started asking us what we knew about contraception, and then they corrected our misconceptions and answered our questions. To my utter astonishment, I learned stuff. For instance, I had no idea that abortions, if correctly performed, are almost completely harmless to your body, even after your third or fourth. This is a well-kept secret in the US, apparently. In fact, all the workers at the MFPF were fascinated to hear how all this stuff works in the Barbarous States of America.
Then came something utterly shocking to me as an Amuhrikan: one of the counselors asked us to disclose private medical information! And many of the girls complied! Totally illegal back home, if I’m not mistaken, but kind of cool nonetheless because it creates an open environment. What was not as cool was the actual exam. The doctor was very nice, he would come into the conference every now and then to answer rather private questions in front of everyone else and to call in the next girl (they weren’t exactly strict about appointments, they were like “who was here first?” and I was like “me,” and other girls were like “I have class, can I go first?” and I was like “uh, sure…”). But
once I got in to see him, he seemed to be pretending not to understand my (practically fluent) French, which made giving him the necessary information very difficult. He was just going to give me my birth control prescription (which I am admittedly dubious about because he seemed unsure about which French brand to give me) but I had something I wanted him to check out, so he made me undress in a practically open corner of the room, which I found awkward, and then proceeded to poke and prod without letting me know what he was doing or why. Then he handed me my pap smear in an envelope and told me to go mail it with a check for 17 euro.
The whole business cost me 22 euro, plus the 17 euro check for the lab, plus the 88 centimes to mail my own pap smear, plus 22.40 for three months’ worth of birth control pills. Hopefully my school insurance will reimburse me. But not shabby, really, even if the experience was a bit of a culture shock. But here I have to say that the MFPF is pretty amazing, very feminist, very pro contraception, pro giving out correct information instead of scaring girls into being careful, and anti forced marriage (which is actually a huge problem here). Actually, a few weeks ago I unwittingly met one of MFPF’s founders, and he was very nice.
I’d give this experience a 7 out of 10 for sheer novelty. MFPF is fantastic about contraception, but you should really go to a private practice if you want anything else done (or are American).
REMINDER: If you would like to write a review of your local sexual health clinic from your perspective, please email me for more information.
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