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Issue #1040
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From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

The health care system in this country is broken. It was broken before the pandemic started and is now even more broken, brokener if that were an actual word. The province of BC has done an incredible job of leading the pack by coming up with new and more efficient ways to break the system even further. Due to provincial policies directed by an NDP agenda, family doctors are quitting and leaving in droves, driven away by a system that makes running a family practice almost impossible. The government response is to tell the public that family doctors are not needed and that walk-in clinics are the answer, how ever the hell thats supposed to work. Now, in cites like Victoria etc, the wait time at walk-in clinics is 4 hours or more. Don’t even think about trying to go to an emergency clinic unless you bring along your lunch and a sleeping bag. Our slime-ball politicians are constantly strutting for the media, telling the public how great they have handled the situation and how important the medical system is to them. They even say things like “if you have a problem, just go see your doctor, you will bee seen right away and any issue will be dealt with right away”. It would be a joke if it weren’t so tragic. ‘They’ get treatment like that, we do not.

Wait lists for surgery procedures were years long before the pandemic, they are still the same length now and yet no one can get onto those lists and the lists have not gotten any shorter. For many people, the only option is to go out-of-province and pay out-of-pocket for badly needed but not available medical attention. This is something I have been looking into. I’ve needed a hip replacement for several years now, as have so many others. I think the NDP idea is that if people wait long enough, they will drop dead and therefore shorten the waiting list even though they were never able to get onto said list in the first place. But, that does make the government numbers look better.

A year ago I had finally managed to actually ‘see’ a doctor in what used to be our family doctor clinic. Its still a family clinic (at least for now) but you never know which doctor you will see as most of them seem to be there now in temporary positions. I had gotten as far as having X-rays and then being referred to a specialist, an orthodontic surgeon. Thats as far as I got. A year later I had not even been acknowledged by the surgeons office. Thats when I started to explore the out-of-province idea. Or out-of-country, either offer prompt service but for a rather staggering fee. But its at least an option that would work when things get desperate enough. To that end I made another appointment with our local doctor’s office in order to arrange for up-to-date X-rays as I would need them as part of the out-of-province procedure. The doctor on call suggest that I should not have fallen through the cracks and that he’d look into it, so, no X-rays needed at this point in time. His office actually did look into it and found to no one’s surprise that I should have been contacted for at least an appraisal and that had not happened. I was told my case had now been re-referred to the ‘new’ system and that I’d hear from someone to make an appointment within a day or so. A week went by, no calls!

I called back and the person was genuinely concerned and ticked about the lack of response, and said she’d look into it. She must have because the next day I got a call from someone to make an appointment at their ‘new-system’ clinic at the Lion’s Gate hospital, called the ‘ASAP’ clinic where they assess and triage patients. Don’t get too excited, ASAP does not stand for ‘as-soon-as-possible’, it stands for something totally different, its just a ploy. My appointment was for this week and I was interviewed and assessed by a physiotherapist who agreed that I was definitely in need of a hip and that she would ‘refer’ me to a surgeon, and that I would unfortunately be looking at a year or two or so before anything could be done. There are however some pain mitigation things I could try in the mean time. She also suggested that because I am basically in good health and in good shape I could find myself on a short list, once I in fact do get onto a list because healthy people do not need to take up hospital time, they can go home the same day they have the procedure. However, until I actually got a call from a surgeon and got put on a list, I would still be in limbo. If the suggested pain mitigation things like cortisone shots into the joint buy some time, I can wait. If not, I’m still keeping plan B open as wait times out of province are measured in weeks, not years. It’s all very frustrating.

As for getting that first and very important interview with an orthopedic surgeon, that call actually came in, the day after my appointment at the ASAP clinic. The woman who had assessed me did indeed pass on my info as she had indicated she would, and the surgeons office did indeed follow up and make an appointment for assessment by the surgeon for in mid May. I may yet find myself on an ACTUAL waiting list. The length of that list and the chances of moving ahead in it will help with deciding between plan A and plan B. We shall see. One possible thing in my favor for moving forward is that lost year of waiting for that first referral that never came, that year should count at least a bit. Sort of like ‘time served’ in the penal system, only in the penal system you get better treatment.

One thing more…. I don’t actually like talking publicly about my personal situation so if you have just read this, please go ahead and promptly forget all about it.

doug

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From Russ

Bits & pieces & bites.

"Bite down on this" says the dentist.

Yeah - how'd you like to bite down on this? says I. This is the third time this year I'm sitting in the "horror chair" for the same thing - fixing a broken tooth - the SAME tooth!! He did his best, so I really can't blame him.

"You should really have a cap on this tooth like you have on these two" he'd cautioned. But, that is a very costly procedure, about $2,500.00 he estimates. Being a 'practical' person I said, I'm 93 -

I won't live long enough to get my money's worth! He laughed and replied,

"That's up to you" and went on, "If you keep having a repair each time you break it, you may be better-off going for the implant". Now, he's 'digging for gold', I'm thinking, and I can remember when dentists used pure gold to 'do fillings'. I can prove that, because I still have the gold the dentist removed from my front teeth when he did the implants nearly 70 years ago! I agree, implants last a very long time - I won't.

$$$$ Each repair cost about $187, I could have over 13 repairs for the cost of only one implant! I'll go for repairs.

OK - I didn't tell you how I'm breaking the repair-job so often. I love to eat apples, and the more they snap as I bite into one, the better, so I've been getting the "Crisp" variety. Love 'em! I eat an apple a day - it keeps the doctor away! But that's not how I keep breaking my teeth. Can you keep a secrete? My sin is 'oatmeal-chocolate chip' cookies. I eat them frozen! They are much more fun, and tastier that way - but, dangerous to the molars! The chocolate chips become hard as tooth-fillings.

I know what you are thinking - it's all my fault (and you're right!), but, I don't have much fun anymore now that I'm making applesauce, and dunking.*

Hey Doug, will you be joining the "Rolling Thunder" MC Protest in Ottawa on Friday?

Russ.

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

Not a lot happening this week other than winter temperatures and frosty evenings and mornings!

At least the next couple of days are supposed to be nice and warm with spring like sun shining bright!

Oh well, I’m sure the nice warm weather will happen soon enough but for now, I’ll be waiting with baited breath!

*

This past Monday made me think we were living in Doug and Sue’s area of the country. I was upstairs shaving and Adam was in his bedroom still doing something but Carole was in the kitchen busy as usual. Suddenly Carole yelled for us to come down to see what was in our back yard. We both stopped what we were doing and hurried down the stairs to find that Carole had just seen a full grown doe deer at the side of our house. She was being chased by a black lab dog that belongs to the neighbour three doors down the street from our house! The deer tried to ram it’s head through the wrought iron gate we have between our house and the neighbour beside us. The bars bent apart enough for the doe to get it’s head stuck through the gate but of course it could go no further! I guess with the dog growling at it’s heels, it finally yanked it’s head out of the bars and turned to knock over a decorative chair that Carole has at the side of the house and then ran to the front of the house with the dog hot on her heels once again. The last Carole saw of the two, the dog was chasing the doe further down our street and finally out of sight! It made me think of all the wild life that Doug and Sue have showing up around their house but of course we don’t get any bears in our neck of the woods. I figured that the deer must have followed the Hydro Right Of Way from out in the countryside that’s not more than a kilometer west of our house. Then got off the right of way and into the housing area of Forest Heights. Once in our area, the dog picked up it’s trail and began doing what Labrador Retrievers do instinctively, chase after game of any kind! That happening was a first for our area since we’ve lived here for the past 24 years! We’ also had a duck in our pond last week! Over the years, we’ve seen lots of geese and ducks flying over and had the pair of geese in the front lawn area but nothing like this deer! Oh well, it was good to know that the doe got away from the Lab but I hope she managed to make it back to the countryside without being hit by a car in the city!

That’s about all the excitement for this week folks!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in the Ontarion Report!

Bye for now…. Greg

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Have A Good One
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The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.