Genevan Tips French Doctor 2 Francs: 'This Must Help, Back Home'
The surgeon earns three times his salary. The patient asked for a receipt.
GENEVA. A patient who had his appendix removed at Geneva University Hospitals handed his surgeon, a cross-border worker living in Haute-Savoie, a 2-franc coin on Monday, telling him: “This must help, back home.”
“I know it’s hard over there,” the man added, clasping the doctor’s hand in both of his. “Buy yourself something nice. Some bread, maybe.”
The surgeon, who earns roughly three times the patient’s salary, thanked him politely before returning to his German company car and his villa with a pool in Collonges-sous-Salève.
The man then asked for a receipt “for my tax return,” explaining that he considered the gesture “development aid.” He also offered the nurse, who is from Lyon, his old jumpers “for the winter, if you have heating.”
According to his wife, he spent the evening telling relatives he had “fed a French family for a week.”
On Tuesday, on receiving the bill, he learned the 2-franc gesture would not be deducted from the 14,300 francs for his operation. He called the sum “perfectly reasonable, for Swiss quality.”
Le Cardon is a satirical paper. This article is fiction.