Skip to main content

Adventures in health care



I was in severe pain yesterday from an unidentified throat injury, so I decided to pay a visit to my local clinic, where I was refused treatment.

The dumbass on the front desk -- who admitted to being a nubie -- told me my health card had expired. Immediately, I thought I had destroyed the wrong card, so I left the clinic, more than a little mad and embarrassed.

I renewed my card last July along with my driver's license, but I hadn't used it, being adverse to medical intervention of any sort. I knew I received a new card, so spent about two hours scouring the house. Alas, no health card in sight.

So I sat on my Ekornes chair with a glass of red to dull the throbbing pain and felt sorry for myself. Then I thought, wait a nanosecond! The picture on the health card is exactly the same as the one on my driver's license, so THEREFORE...

I picked up the card and sure enough, it was my new, non-expired health card with the date 2015 on it.

Should I have noticed this at the doctor's office and argued?

Yes, but the decision to visit the doctor's office was made at the spur of the moment -- on a wine run to the LCBO which is next door. I hadn't brought my reading glasses so I had no way of knowing whether what the dumbass had said was right.

By the time I donned my glasses, it was too late. The clinic was closed.

So I sit here today in pain that might have been eased by an antibiotic last night.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, Marissa had a bad headache and stiff neck, so she went to the emergency room where she and Jeff waited the usual six hundred hours before being seen.

"Eek," said the resident. "It looks like you have meningitis."

And with that, Marissa received her first ever SPINAL TAP.

She didn't have meningitis, of course, maybe just a virus, so they sent her home in painful agony, thanks to the six foot needle they stuck in her spine to drain out fluid.

Did they figure out what was wrong? Or did they give her any drugs?

Nope.

And down the road, Doris is languishing in her schwetty little apartment without the benefit of any home care, with nearly-dead Bob schlepping to the store to buy her food. There would be no therapy as promised by the CCAC because she didn't need it.

Really, they just needed the hospital bed so they made up a bunch of shoddy health care lies to get her out on her keister and badly broken foot.

Socialized medicine. Gotta love it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ashley Simpson: Conversation with Derek Favell Revealed

  On April 2, 2017, a family friend of Ashley Simpson opened her Facebook Messenger and got the surprise of her life.  Cathy MacLeod had been trying to correspond with Ashley's boyfriend, Derek Favell, who was the last person to see the St. Catharines native before she disappeared from her home in Salmon Arm, B.C. a year before. She wanted to know more about what happened to Ashley, and why Favell had refused to take a polygraph test when many others close to the missing woman agreed to do so. "I wanted to poke the bear," she said, and sent several messages to Favell pleading with him to talk to her.  " Please help us," she wrote. "It's been 10 months of pure hell. A lie detector would help if you have nothing to hide. I beg of you, help us, take the test to clear your name if there’s nothing to hide." Many, including members of the Simpson family, found Derek's behaviour, at least, curious. Ashley had disappeared on April 27, 2016. Yet it took

Ashley Simpson: A Father Remembers

I have asked Ashley Simpson's family and friends to give us a glimpse into the life she lived before going missing nearly a month ago. Here is how her father John remembers his sweet girl. Ashley was a treat when she came into this world, a smashing 9lbs 8 ounces with a  head full of hair and nails that needed to be clipped. She has made many friends in her journey of life and continues to make them as we speak. She has made this world a better place by her love of mankind and this place we call Earth; unfortunately this life she has lived hasn't been the best for her. She has suffered through unbearable pain and suffering through her menstrual cycles. She has cysts on her ovaries that make those 10 days a living hell. She had one of her ovaries removed when she was just 14; the other they won't take out till she is 40 or older. Years of hell for my Ashley. I so feel her pain every month but she doesn't quit, doesn't give in.   That's my

Jack Van Dusen: 90 Years Old and Not a Drop Wasted

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."  -- L. Frank Baum It's not easy standing out in a family like the Van Dusens. They are like tribbles; they are everywhere. In politics. In the media. In the fine arts. Even on stage at local fairs raising money for good causes. But Jack Van Dusen is no ordinary Van Dusen. He's a trailblazer. He was the voice of Ottawa anchoring the local news in the early days, with the sidekicks you see in the photo above. He was on Parliament Hill rubbing shoulders with the likes of John George Diefenbaker and making mischief with the relatively small cabal of ink stain wretches who were the first generation to talk to Canadians over the air waves. After a successful time in the media, Jack had a second career as a public relations guy. That's when I met him sitting at the lunch table at the National Press Club with his brother Tom, the columnist Charles Lynch, Sergeant-at-Arms Gus Clou