O O Ø O O O O
Doctor, Doctor!
Is it “Dripping with Sarcasm Tuesday” already?
There’s nothing wrong with the state of the health care system in Canada.
Why, just this past week, a member of my household actually visited a doctor with hardly a day’s notice. Now, unfortunately, I can’t do the same. You see, the local walk-in doesn’t allow appointments, and any time I encounter a doctor I might consider returning to, they aren’t accepting any new patients. This isn’t all that bad, mind you, as the average wait at the local walk-in (45 minutes) is actually less than my average waiting time back when I could make appointments (50 minutes).
Besides, the Calgary Health Region makes it very easy to find a family doctor. Just visit a web page, and try to find a link that isn’t dead. And before you ask, one for three isn’t so bad. Do you know how hard it is to keep web pages up to date? Besides, that crufty old HSD database offered far too much searchability and choice. Much better to go with an HTML table.
Physicals are low priority... How eager are you to see the old glove anyway?
Nope. No problems at all. Physicals are low priority anyway. It doesn’t really matter that you need to book them fully four months in advance. I mean really, how eager are you to see the old glove anyway?
And as for hospital emergency rooms, despite claims to the contrary, people hardly ever die there. You see, the six-hour waiting times are actually our own collective faults. People who have been otherwise healthy their entire lives have no business being in Emergency for a chronic stomach condition so painful they are hardly able to sit down. Your local clinic can prescribe a stomach-numbing liquid. Surely the problem will go away by the time the medicine wears off. If nothing else, desperation will drive them to solve their own problem. No — Emergency is for emergencies; and the occasional “stepped on a rusty nail two hours after the local clinics have all closed, and eleven years after the last tetanus booster went into your arm.” Though you’ll wait a good four hours for that, too, only to have the nurse administer the shot in the waiting area anyway. It just wouldn’t be fair for that 30 second procedure to vault ahead of the unclassified masses.
That’s why ambulance rides cost $288. Nobody healthy enough to think clearly will allow an ambulance to pick them up.
The solution to Hospital overcrowding, of course, is to get everyone out of the Hospitals. Really, there’s very little need to visit a Hospital emergency room if you can still walk. That’s why ambulance rides cost $288. Nobody healthy enough to think clearly will allow an ambulance to pick them up. Besides, there are perfectly good 24-hour clinics available, and though it may seem logical to refer after-hours patents to these clinics with signs in the windows of the other, non-24 hour clinics, this is really extraneous, as responsible citizens know the locations anyway.
Actually, it is a good thing that the health care system is geared to keep people out of doctors’ offices and Hospitals. After all, these are places where sick people congregate. The only way to remain healthy is to avoid them like the proverbial plague. Contrast this system with the costly and wasteful dental industry. Dentists actually encourage patients to make appointments twice a year even though they may have nothing to complain about. With all the recalls, cleanings, and follow-ups, its a wonder people have any time left over to get any work done. No, the health care industry has a much more sane approach. Even if they prescribe you brain-chemistry-altering drugs with large “do not stop taking this medication suddenly” labels, health care workers realize that followup calls are unnecessary. After all, your neurochemistry is your own business. Your time is precious. If you want an appointment, you’ll book one several weeks in advance.
WebMD and their ilk are purveyors of informational snake oil.
In fact, the only real problem facing the health care industry today is the Internet—that pesky morass of misinformation and pseudo-factual content. Doctors were doing just fine before patients started looking up their own symptoms, thank-you-very-much. Get off your computer. Health care practitioners are far more educated and trained than you are. If it’s dangerous, they’ll tell you about it. Drug interactions? That’s what pharmacists are for. WebMD and their ilk are purveyors of informational snake oil. Don’t you think if there were potential hazardous side effects your Doctor would tell you about them? Expert systems and diagnosis databases are a ridiculous idea. People are much more capable of keeping up on the latest syndromes, treatments, diseases, and drug interactions than those pesky inanimate hunks of silicon and copper.
So yes, the health care system is in perfect health, thank-you-for asking.
As long as you stay healthy.
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
PD DLXXIV