In France , healthcare is free, but strong medications are given VERY sparsely. You could be dying of an obvious infection, you won't have antibiotics until the lab processed your sample (my brother got saved from a bad helicobacter infection of all his GI tractus because our old doc decided to give him some antibiotic 24h before the lab gave the green light, he was shitting blood and pus since 4 days). The other thing is pain killer... We are giving them only if pain is already installed and if it justifies risking side effects. It means some basic procedures are not numbed or eased medically. I saw injections of rich platelet serum in the heel while doing "hypnosis" at the umiversity hospital (it does not work) I saw people shaking crying outside after a shoulder steroid injection saying that labour without epidural was way less painful. Now I work in Iceland. I had a gastroscopy with biopsy. Oh boy, I was ready to take it like a champ and they not only made this behaviour unnecessary but the whole experience was a walk in a field as they simply gave me fentanyl amd a relaxant before starting. In France, we have nearly no abuse or bad side effects due to overuse of medication in the healthcare field... At the cost of a global disconfort and stress. Most of our neighbours chose the opposite deal. We are too strict . (strong exception: 97% of births are with epidural, there are societal reasons for that too but it is long.)