Habamus Goes to Hospital

Since health care is in the news yet again I want to relate a recent experience I had at an emergency ward in Windsor last week.

I went in with excruciating chest pains and ended up waiting four hours before a physician saw me. I thought for sure that I was going to drop dead on the emergency room floor. When I told the triage nurse that the pain was getting worse, she shrugged her shoulders and told me “they’ll come out and get you”.

I decided that if I were going to “die” I would do it in the privacy of my family’s home instead of the floor of an emergency ward with strangers watching. . If I went into a possible cardiac arrest, which I thought I was having at the time, they could call an ambulance.

I was just ready to leave but I was finally called in where I was given morphine and hooked up to monitors and basic tests were investigated. I was treated very well once I got in there but waiting four hours is such severe pain, which could have been a possible heart attack, is inexcusable

Just a few days prior I had contacted a hospital in Detroit Michigan to inquire about their cardiac care services because I understood that O.H.I.P may cover services there. Let me tell you, if I had the money I would be in the U.S. getting better health services than I do here. Under the circumstances I just described, I would have been admitted to hospital in the U.S. and they would have determined thoroughly what the hell is going on.

Even though the U.S. physician confirmed that I could have a heart attack without knowing it, it was determined here in Canada that I didn’t although I still have chest pains.

Since my income is low, I would be the last person who would support private healthcare.

I’m in no way advocating an all out private health care system. I am advocating a private-public system. If patients who were taking up beds in a public hospital could afford to go to a private hospital, they would certainly free up beds that I was told that weren’t available to get me in immediately.

I see what the problem is though. I just don’t get why 24-hour clinics are not established in every city that can handle non-life-threatening emergencies. There is one good example of a 24-hour clinic in Bracebridge Ontario that freed up emergency wards. There was a doctor available on call if, for example, your child came down with croup at 3 am. Although we had to wake him up, he was there for us and it was still covered by O.H.I.P.

Those doctors were very good and they had equipment that wasn’t used by any other doctor in the province. Some of the family physicians in the area had their nose bent out of shape but were they available 24 hours when you think your child is sick with meningitis? They were excellent diagnosticians and specialists confirmed their suspicions.

I have also suggested that beds could be freed in hospitals by having longer-term patients moved to their homes and receive home health care services. Some palliative care services are done this way. I don’t know about you, but I would rather die in my own home surrounded 24 hours by my family than in a hospital ward.

I also disagree with hospitals as massive corporate entities. If people can be cared for in their own homes then that’s where they should be. It’s my belief that no more large hospitals should be built but reduced only to provide emergency, diagnostic and surgical services. They should be used for intensive and critical services to get patients to the point where they can be transferred to their homes where nurses can then come in and provide support to the patient. Perhaps doctors could consider making house calls again.

Canadian health care is complicated and just making a statement supporting privately run health services is too narrow-minded and cannot be dealt with in one blow. Time has to be taken to examine all the complaints of patients, which has already been done but nothing concrete has taken place other than just throwing money at a broken system to start with.

It’s the government’s duty to see to it that legislation is written to guarantee the rights of all individuals to quality health care and that those using the public system receive the same diagnostic benefits as those who are willing to pay for it. Preventative medicine sometimes means thorough diagnosis so future trips to doctors and hospitals is minimized. Hospitals should be the hub of diagnostic services, not a showcase for architecture and contractor largess.

Why should one person benefit from being able to have cardiac testing because they can pay for it while a person who is in the public system have to wait four hours? Why send someone home without thorough scientific evidence that shows exactly what is wrong so they can get proper help for it then and not continue to have to go back to emergencies rooms because know one knows the facts of their illness?