To the Editor:
We live in a country whose medical system is envied. Recently, my experiences have left me wondering.
At an emergency visit, I was asked to list my symptoms. Four hours later, I saw a doctor for approximately three minutes. He made the diagnosis from the symptoms I listed and told me that I did not need medication. A sign posted in the waiting room says an uninsured person pays almost $300 for an emergency visit. That makes the time I saw this doctor worth $6,000 per hour.
I stopped seeing “my” doctor at the clinic because I had had four appointments (each trip to the clinic is at least 110 kilometres return) for the results of X-rays. I was not told the results. The clinic staff told me that because I quite my doctor, I could no longer come to the clinic.
A couple of years before this doctor, I had met a new doctor who told me to phone the clinic and get on the list for when the office opened. I had no doctor at the time I phoned three times in two weeks. The first two times the clinic staff said that they were not taking names. The third time, the clinic staff said that that doctor’s quota was filled.
There is something very wrong with the delivery of our medical services. Whatever happened to the second opinion?
Kingsgate