The Dystopian Times, 18. The Doctor Will Not See You

I was not aware until today of how to go about getting a doctor to see you since things have changed. Until now, this year I last went, before the pandemic, for an ear infection one Saturday, at the end of January. Even that wasn't a proper appointment, because I went on a Saturday morning as a walk-in. Since the pandemic I went once to the night emergency side of the clinic for a UTI, and found we all had to wait outside. But that was it. I try to avoid doctor visits.

The only doctor appointments I've made have been to renew prescriptions. For some years, I've been making them phone appointments, since it's simply a matter of having the doctor push a few buttons on the computer, and the prescriptions are renewed on my health card. I don't bother to go in to the clinic for those types of bureaucratic appointments.

But this time, I noticed a small problem. Since it could easily lead to either something routine, or something big, I decided to make a regular appointment. Since the last time I made a prescription appointment, by the web page, it said that to see the doctor in person a patient had to either call the clinic or go talk to the receptionist, I decided to go into town to get written in. 

But no, I can't see the doctor. It turns out that doctors aren't accepting any in-person appointments with patients. All appointments are done by phone. So, if someone has a rash and needs a cream, how are they going to tell the doctor what's wrong? "Describe the rash to me." The patient might reply, "It's big and red and itchy." "Does it have scales?" "I'm not a fish!" "Does it suppurate?" "I don't want supper, I want a cream!" There are probably some interesting conversations going on.

If the doctor deems it appropriate, he will tell the patient to come in, but that adds another day or two to the problem the patient has. And if the patient tries to go by the emergency side, they'll be berated for doing that and not talking to their doctor first. The pretty good system we've had until now has gone haywire. 

It's all because of the devil virus, of course. And because our regional government, which controls the regional department of public health, has been slashing its yearly budget for years, citing efficiency. Well, efficiency now seems to be having the GP's attend their regular patients by phone, so they can also search out the close contacts of those who have tested positive for Covid. Of course, that way they can neither attend the patients as well as they should (they were already complaining about the volume of patients before this), nor can they track down all the close contacts (and aren't doing so). But, to the regional government, that is efficient.

There are older people who need to see specialists, but who are told they can't, citing risks from the virus. So, a person's health can slowly deteriorate, until they have no choice but to go to a hospital emergency room. If they don't die from the virus, they'll die from something else easily preventable.

Much the same has been happening in education. For years, the conservative regional government has been cutting away at its budget. Classes were made bigger just a couple of years ago, and teachers furloughed, in the interests of saving money. So, now that we need to have kids in small classes, we have neither the infrastructure nor the personnel. Beautiful.

There are areas that can never have budget cuts without consequence. Health and education are the two most important. Now, we get to reap what we sowed.

Life continues.