I have some sad health care stories for my readers today. Amanda over at My Ramblings was diagnosed with cancer at the start of October. Treatment with lasers started a couple weeks later, and further testing revealed that the cancer had likely spread. Her biopsy to confirm that was scheduled for today, but yesterday the doctor’s office called and rescheduled… for November 24! Yes, that’s not a typo, she’s being made to wait one month before they even know how/if they will treat the cancer that will potentially kill her if it goes untreated too many weeks. How could they do that to someone?
Quite easily apparently. I was talking today with another friend, whose son had his hand mutilated in a farming accident in July. He got sent a letter this past week asking him to START physiotherapy in Yorkton. It’s only about three months after when he should have started, and it’s not like he needed that hand all these months!
A few days ago I got a call from my doctor’s office. It seems they filed a second lab report done back in August to confirm a July test with an abnormal liver enzyme number. I’d even phoned a week after the test and asked them if the doctor wanted to see me about it. They said everything must be fine because the report “was filed”. I took them at their word, when normally I ask for a copy of the lab report for my records. Now he’s set up an appointment regarding the test for … wait for it … November 21! The office sent me the report by fax on Tuesday, and on it in bold figures are numbers that are outside of the normal ranges, highlighted by an arrow. So please don’t send me beer.
I phoned Newstalk980.com at 9:50 AM about Amanda’s experience. John Gormley gets plenty of healthcare complaints emailed to him, so I wanted to be sure that I didn’t just email because that might not make it on the air and into peoples ears where sad facts like that need to sit. Our priorities in Saskatchewan aren’t in the right place. You just don’t tell someone with a treatable-if-caught-early disease to wait more than a month for treatment and further diagnosis. That is just so wrong, and flies in the face of good sense, human decency, and the point of medicare.
This isn’t an argument for killing Medicare. Just the opposite, it’s a eulogy for Medicare. Medicare, as good as it was, is dead. We have to raise it from the dead, or deliver a replacement plan, because telling people to wait months for health saving treatment until they are beyond hope or further disabled, is a despicable policy that must destroy the will of health care providers that truly care about people.
@hotmail.com
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
Amanda | 27-Oct-06 at 2:15 pm | Permalink
Your liver enzyme results fiasco smacked all too familiar to my ears. My neighbour from home had hip replacement surgery a few years ago, and sees a specialist for upkeep. When she had the surgery she was told she would likely need knee replacement too (due to the accident she was involved in). She elected to leave it for the time being, but at this last appt with the specialist he recommended she go forward with the knee replacement soon. She agreed. He told her all she would need to do was contact her doctors office and have them send off the referral to him, for paperwork reasons, and then she would be booked. He estimated a wait time of six months.
She phoned the Dr office and asked what she needed to do to get a referral. Since her case is well known in our small town, the receptionist said she didn’t need to do anything, and that a referral letter would be sent immediately. Good. Pat phoned the specialist and let him know the referral letter was in the pipeline.
That was in June. Last week, Pat got a call from the local doctor’s office. They informed her that she would have to come in for a consultation BEFORE they sent the referral letter. Furiously, Pat reminded the receptionist that she had been told the letter had already been sent, like four months ago. The receptionists response? “Well, you were told wrong.”
No letter has been sent. And now, according to Pat’s specialist, the wait time is longer, and she may well be waiting until January — of 2008. How pathetic.
Sorry for the ramblings. I’m just infuriated with the bureaucracy and the ineptitude displayed in my midst.
Saskboy | 27-Oct-06 at 2:57 pm | Permalink
Don’t be sorry for “rambling”. It’s not rambling, it’s publishing the truth. That knee story is horrible too.
Todd | 27-Oct-06 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
I’m getting more down all the time regarding healthcare. I keep crossing my fingers that nothing serious will happen to me as I’m not sure I really trust the system anymore. If (hopefully not ‘when’) I get sick or my family does, on the first signs of trouble with getting diagnosis or treatment, I’m going to rock the boat. I’m going to send letters to papers, I’m going to phone radio and TV stations, I’m going to raise a stink. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Saying that, I know, is easier than actually doing it. When you’re ill, it’s not easy to ‘rock the boat’. You’re concerned that people might get upset with you and take it out on you by further delaying your treatment. But I really believe this is the only way to make them stand up and notice you if you need urgent care.
In your lab case, I would write letters to your health district and the doctor’s office asking them why your lab report was not acted upon before this. I wouldn’t let it rest but I’d raise some hell about it. Maybe that way any treatment you may need might be expedited.
It’s sad in this day and age that people need to push so hard for their healthcare but I think its what is needed.