I've been seeing Steven Crowder on TV a lot, and I thought I'd expand on this post from the other day. If you haven't seen his exposé on Canadian health care, you can watch it here.

I just thought I'd recap some of my experiences, which aren't that far off from what Crowder went through in Canada.  A "greatest hits," if you will, of the past two years of my life.

I've already done my listing of terrible bedside manner I've encountered over the years, but let's see if we can dig up some more gems.

I wish my husband wasn't unreachable in Afghanistan, because he has some good stories too.  I seem to remember him needing a physical a while back and thinking he had a 7 AM appointment.  It turns out that 7 AM was just the cattle call: every soldier who needed a physical that day turned up at 7 AM to sit and wait his turn.  I remember him saying there was a sign in the room that said something to the effect of "Have a seat; this WILL take all day."  Heh.

Sean Hannity expressed surprise that Crowder had to take a number like it was a butcher shop or something.  We take a number so often in the military life that I didn't even bat an eye at that.  In fact, I take a number every week when I go in to get my bloodwork done.

In my experience, I have had trouble getting actual human beings to answer my questions and give me the help I need.  Last year when I had Miscarriage #2:

I expected to be there until midnight. I didn't expect to be there until 4:30 AM. During that time, I had less than ten minutes of actual medical care -- take blood pressure, ask about my symptoms, quick pelvic exam -- and was eventually told...drumroll..."Geez, I don't know anything about fertility stuff, so just call your doctor Monday morning."

In the meantime, while we were sitting around all night, I also wrote about the family next to us:

The gist is that the daughter had a chronic problem that had been happening for months. The parents were separated and the mother was "too lazy" to make the kid an appointment. The dad said that he works here in the hospital and had asked colleagues about his daughter's problem, but since it persisted, they wanted to have it checked out.

On a Friday night. In the ER.

There was no emergency, no sudden change in her condition that made them feel that treatment was necessary, nothing like that. This dad just brought his three kids in to spend the night in the ER. My husband and I were there for eight hours, until 5 AM, and this family had arrived before us and was still there when we left.

That is not an emergency.

This family was clogging up the ER and making me and, more importantly, other people with more pressing problems wait longer. They were sapping resources. If you work in the hospital, can't you find the time to make an appointment for your daughter? Why are you taking care of a child's chronic health problem in the middle of the night on a Friday?

Because you don't have to pay anything either way, that's why.

Why make a regular doctor's appointment during the week, and have to ask for time off work and take the kid out of school, when you could just bring everyone to camp out in the ER all night. There is no cost difference, so it's just easier to do it off hours.

No wonder it took me so long to be seen. And I feel even worse for the guy with the gall stones; he really would've liked to have been treated faster.

I am sure that this family isn't the only one of its kind. They bog down the system for all of us. A problem that's been going on for three months is not something that requires ER care on a weekend. Make a normal appointment and free up that ER doctor for someone who really needs him.

And that, I think, is the crux of the problem.  We don't pay for any of our care, so for most people, it's easier to take care of things on nights and weekends than it is to do it during the week.  What's the difference, we don't pay either way.  And I'm guilty of abusing the system as well: if I had had to pay $100 to go in and find out if I had strep or not, I probably wouldn't have.  I would've taken a cough drop and dealt with it.  But I used resources because they were free.

Or at least, free to me.  Somebody paid.

After Miscarriage #2, the doctor was telling me my options.  These words actually came out of his mouth: "Well, we could do another D&C surgery, but that costs the taxpayers an awful lot of money, so maybe you could consider miscarrying naturally?"

Don't let anyone tell you that medical decisions won't be made based on cost once the government is in charge.  I have already experienced it firsthand in the military system.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:32 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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