As one would expect of the richest country in Europe, Germany offers high quality healthcare, from primary care through to high-tech hospitals and good provision for chronic disease and old age.

It all dates back to Otto von Bismarck, the ‘Iron Chancellor’ who established Germany’s social welfare system in the 1870s. He was reported to have said it was immoral to benefit from sickness, and that “insurance should be on the mutual principle (so that the healthy pay as much as the...

When health goes wrong, it can be a troubling time. But if it goes wrong when you’re in a location you’re not necessarily familiar with, where the attitudes to treatment and care are different, and where cultural acceptances and language are sometimes incomprehensible, those troubles become deeper. I know, because I’ve lived abroad and been there myself.
I recently came back from a trip to China, where I’ve been inspecting hospitals to make sure they’re of a high enough qualit...

Everyone with poor eyesight dreams of being able to see the world’s shapes and colours clearly. No matter if they wear glasses or contact lenses, people with eyesight problems often claim that these forms of correction are both inconvenient and insufficient. Nowadays, people want to live actively, they want to do sports, they want to travel and to pursue their careers. Nobody wants to be limited by poor eyesight, especially when it is possible to eliminate this inconvenience.

The wor...

Hair loss affects some 25 percent of men in their 20s and two thirds of all men after the age of 60. Male pattern baldness does not have any intrinsic side effect aside from hair loss so many simply consider it a cosmetic medical condition, but for those who suffer from it, the effects can be devastating, with social and psychological consequences.

Hair transplant techniques have steadily improved over time, but now a revolutionary technique called Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) has ...

What price would you put on your health? It’s a difficult question to answer. But with healthcare costs rising at double the normal rate of inflation, it may be something you have to consider sooner rather than later. The first principle: medical inflation.

The biggest factor of rising costs in any market, be it healthcare, agriculture or any other type of trade, is inflation. In the last 20 years, inflation has resulted in the costs of everyday goods and services doubling. However, ...