Every year, Switzerland has a nationwide flu vaccination programme ahead of the winter season. The best time to get vaccinated is between mid-March and mid-November. The vaccination programme started on 23 October and will run until 9 November 2018. This year is the first with vaccinations offered simultaneously in doctor’s surgeries and pharmacies. Last flu […]
Cost of Swiss healthcare second highest in the world and rising
Swiss healthcare costs of 12.2% of GDP are the world’s second highest after the United States where healthcare consumes 17.1% of GDP, according to 2016 figures presented by the Federal Statistical Office on 18 October 2018. Switzerland spent CHF 80.5 billion on healthcare in 2016, the latest figures reveal. This comes out at around CHF […]
Governments meet in Geneva to get tough on the tobacco industry
On 11 October 2018, Governments of 181 countries and the European Union met in Geneva for the 8th conference of the parties to the global tobacco treaty, formally called the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The tobacco industry has a history of using legal threats to intimidate governments into abandoning the […]
Blood donation – Swiss politician calls for donors to be remunerated
National councillor Pierre-André Page (UDC/SVP) would like to see some form of remuneration offered to blood donors to address the shortage of blood, according to RTS. “A glass of red and a sandwich is fine but we could do better” Page told the newspaper 20 Minutes, suggesting donors be remunerated from the social tax pot […]
Number of cases of tick-borne encephalitis rises sharply in Switzerland
In around 1% of cases tick-borne encephalitis can be deadly. It is a virus carried by ticks, which can cause brain swelling and neurological damage. The period between March and November is when most people get infected, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). Ticks become active when the temperature reaches 7 […]
Swiss Rail plans barriers to stop suicides
According to RTS, Swiss Rail is planning to erect barriers in seven places between Lausanne and Geneva to reduce the number of suicides. Nearly 140 people across Switzerland die in rail related suicide every year. Around 20 of these occur between Lausanne and Geneva, one of the worst stretches of track in the country. The […]
Survey reveals sexual behaviour of young Swiss
A survey of 7,142 Swiss, with an average age of 26, conducted by two university hospitals, was published this week. 95% of those surveyed had had at least one sexual partner, and 86% had had only heterosexual relationships. The average age for the first relationship was 17. 62% of men and 44% of women had […]
Vaud caps health insurance premiums at 12% of income
Starting in September 2018, health insurance premiums in excess of 12% of income in the canton of Vaud will be covered by the government. From the beginning of 2019, this percentage will be reduced to 10%, increasing the number of people who qualify and the size of the subsidies, according to the newspaper Le Matin. […]
Halogen light bulbs to be banned in Switzerland
At the beginning of September 2018, Swiss retailers stopped replacing their stocks of nearly all halogen light bulbs. Along with standard incandescent bulbs, which were forced from Swiss shop shelves in 2013, the sale of halogen bulbs will be banned from the end of August 2019. The only halogen bulbs that will remain on sale […]
Swiss healthcare – French and Italian speakers more likely to run to hospital than German-speakers
A recent report by the Swiss Health Observatory (Obsan), presents the number of trips residents made to hospital accident and emergency departments (A&E) in 2016. The number of visits per 1,000 residents varies widely. The average across all of Switzerland was 197. However, in the canton of Appenzell-Innerhodden only 53 per 1,000 of the population […]
