At last my Carte Vitale has arrived in the post. This is a little plastic card with a chip containing all my social security details. Mine includes details of my ‘Affection de Longue Durée – (ALD)’. My Parkinson’s Disease is classed as a long lasting illness and all the treatment costs are met by the state and do not affect my insurance premiums. No longer will the doctor or pharmacist groan when I visit because they have to complete lengthy forms to enable me to be reimbursed for my medicine and treatment from my insurance. These cards are notorious for taking a long time to arrive. Mine has taken nearly a year. My partner is still waiting for his.
The lady in the local office has done her best to help us with the delay. She thought some of the problems were caused by the accompanying paperwork we had to submit. Top of the list is my vintage 1949 English birth certificate which is the wrong size for an ordinary A4 photocopy or scan necessitating two pages which is unacceptable. The copy must be the actual size on one sheet of paper. We tried submitting a colour photograph of it on A4 paper which was also unacceptable. Further confusion came because my mother (the informant) and I (the baby) both had the same names so we were required to submit a translation of the certificate. More problems came because I am divorced but I have kept my married name so I was asked to submit my divorce papers. These are in my married name but do not mention my maiden name so no proof of identity! These were just some of the reasons our friendly lady thought caused the delay. Eventually they got a bigger photocopier in the local office which seemed to solve the problem.
I received notification that I was about to receive the card and a request for a new passport-sized photo to be sent quickly. We went into a supermarket with a passport photo booth. There are strict guidelines on the photo in the booth for example the ears and eyebrows must be visible, no earrings, hair must be pushed back from face, eyes must be level with the guides. The seat was wonky and difficult to manoeuvre to get my eyes in the slot guides. Then the machine snaffled my 5€ note but nothing happened. A shop assistant knew there was a problem with the machine and leant under the curtain with another note. I was quite fraught by the time the picture was taken. Unsurprisingly I now have a photo on my card in which I look completely crazed with wild manic eyes!
Anyway now I have the card so no more standing around for twenty minutes whilst the poor pharmacist enters my details in his computer as a queue of people waiting for prescriptions builds.
Parkinson's Disease and me 