Two months to the day of major surgery that kept me off work for all that time, it was nice to read colleague Mike Robinson’s report about Centre Wellington’s commitment to the recruitment of health care workers in the community.
Our own experience with health care over the past two years has been rewarding – and frustrating. We have concluded after some thought that Canada does indeed offer excellent health care, but that also comes with a caveat. Be prepared to stick up for yourself. Most problems, we found, came not from the professionals, but others one meets along the way. It seems to us that some of those providing administrative or clerical support have an exaggerated sense of their importance – while those in the trenches do yeoman service.
We can cite one example from last fall, where we had to provide (yet again) more blood samples. One was at the regular blood clinic, and we were in and out with dispatch. The second sample had to be taken at a hospital. We had been told in early September that surgery might be available by early November, but all the tests had to be done first. The clerk at the hospital station told us flat out we would not be having blood taken that day – and offered a date nearly three months away – at the end of November.
We argued adamantly and that clerk was joined at the station by another clerical type, who basically stated we could take that date or leave it. Fortunately, at that time, the person who actually did the blood taking came by and invited us in. In fewer than ten minutes, we were finished – so much for a wait of nearly three months. Patients should always be more important than office routine and schedules – and we appreciate the flexible people who live and work by that credo.
As we noted, it is not often that the health care people cause problems, although we note our own surgery went extremely well except for one aspect, which left us with a major sore throat for nearly three weeks and caused our hospital nurse and later our family doctor to state he had never seen such a mess in all his years in medicine.
We have to admit that when we read there are still 1,000 people in Centre Wellington without a family doctor, we were slightly shocked. Years ago, when the doctor recruitment team was first formed, there were close to 2,600 people who had no family doctor. Then, with the team’s efforts, that list was reduced right down to zero. Then, it apparently restarted. Given that the recruitment team has been so successful, we can only assume population growth has outstripped those efforts. We note, too, there are many other places in Wellington that have been urgently recruiting doctors, and we suspect the county has been far more successful than most places in its efforts to obtain new doctors, particularly when we heard from Dr. Petrov that people are driving here from places as far away as London and Owen Sound.
In line with our belief that people should be responsible for themselves, we have to confess the surgery we received was brought on by our own lifestyle – and love of food. Health professionals have now helped us to understand the importance of exercise and the importance of discipline – particularly with knife, fork, and spoon.
But, the system still needs some work. There are many caring people working in it, but it takes only a careless or uncaring few to cause people to question what is costing more and more money every year. Still, a salute to the vast majority, who do great work.
