To the Editor:
I had a fall on the ice in January requiring a visit to the emergency room. Upon the visit, the physician at Creston Valley Hospital was very good and went out of his way to get me in to see a specialist the next day in Cranbrook.
At the Cranbrook hospital, I spent five hours waiting for the specialist, whom I had an appointment with. The CT scan took five minutes and then it took two or three hours to get the results.
Meanwhile, five weeks since the fall, I was still not able to use my hand. I was told that everything should be fine but to have it checked by my doctor in seven to 10 days. How do I do this when I have no family doctor? Do I go back to sit at emergency for another five hours? Will they be able to refer me for further treatment? Is this what we can expect from the medical system that we pay for? If so, then maybe all of us should curl up in a corner and give up. I don’t think so.
The government needs to put more funding into recruiting physicians so that we can all have access to medical care. I agree with the statements by director John Kettle in the winter Regional District of Central Kootenay Area B newsletter that having people go to the emergency is not the solution, and I do encourage people to email for the required form to provide more information about how many people do not have a physician. However, can they not get some idea of this from the emergency reports?
I would like it understood that I am not directing this to a bad doctor or a bad system. I am directing this to people that need a little bit of help in order to survive. If this is too much to ask, then why are we paying taxes and why are we paying government health fees?
If we cannot get the help that we need, we may end up back in the old ways, when there was no medical care and people died young and suffered needlessly. I know how frustrated I am. I can only imagine how it would feel to be a parent with young children and not be able to have a family doctor, to have to sit with them in emergency for hours on end. To the politicians out there: If this were your child, wouldn’t you want and expect the best care for them by the system that you pay for?
I know my daughter, my grandchildren and I deserve the best, even though they are not as rich and do not make the money in a year that most politicians do. They still deserve the best of care. We all pay for our medical system, so why are we having such a hard time getting someone to look after us? I think that our government needs to look very closely at taking less jet rides and putting more funds into getting more doctors. I realize that this has been looked at before, but overlooked due to politicians’ salaries. So therefore, we all suffer. Can somebody please explain to me when this is going to stop, when we can actually pay for our medical situations and not our politician’s salaries?
Yahk