Health
Care in America
“Medicine
is becoming a business, and if people choose medicine as a way to make money,
they should go to the (United) States, because there, health care is a
commodity for sale, and you can shop around for the best product. Patients are
customers and if you’re rich you get better health care than if you’re poor. In
Canada, health care is a basic human right, a service that every human being
deserves…”
Tilda
Shalot (A Nurse’s Story)
In
2022, I have had the misfortune to seek medical care on an unprecedented (for me)
level. A knee replacement, a UTI that did not respond to treatment, and most
recently, an abdominal pain that resulted in a trip to the emergency room. My
doctors work for a medical center that is now owned by a large conglomerate
corporation. Except for the knee replacement, every encounter with the medical
establishment has been singularly disappointing. Here’s a case in point: I had
an abdominal pain just under my ribcage beginning last Friday. Over the course
of three days, it became worse and worse, and I finally, against my better judgement,
went to the emergency room of my in-network hospital. I registered, told them I
was in severe pain and thought it to be gallbladder related. I had blood drawn
and was sent to the waiting room. That was at seven p.m. I sat there for four
hours, with the pain increasing all along. Around ten-thirty, I went to the
desk and told them that the pain was worse and that now I had a headache that
meant my blood pressure was up. The man at the desk told me, “I know you are in
pain. There’s nothing I can do about it.” While I spent four and half hours in
the waiting room, I watched an older black man in a wheelchair sit, covered with
a dirty blanket he’d brought with him, (because it was freezing there) who at
times almost fell out of his chair. Another older woman in a wheelchair, was
given food and water by another patient, and offered nothing by the ER staff.
After I had been there for more than four hours, I went to the desk and told
them I had to leave because I was in shock, shaking, clammy, and my blood
pressure was out the roof. My son drove me home and when I checked my blood
pressure, it was 183/105. I took some medicine and went to bed. Monday morning,
I made an appointment with the Gastroenterologist I had seen just before the
pandemic lock down. When I entered his office and told him what my symptoms were,
he poked around on my abdomen a couple of times, and said, “well it’s not your gallbladder—we
checked that two and a half years ago and it was fine.” He spent less that 5
minutes, no tests, not even an ultrasound to see if the gall bladder was
distended.
That
afternoon one of my friends called who has a concierge doctor—one for whom you
pay a monthly or annual fee. She told me, “It’s expensive, but when I call him,
he answers the phone, and he spends as much time as needed to get to the bottom
of the problem.” You see the difference in care of people who are well to do
and can afford to pay hundreds of dollars per month above and beyond insurance?
Based on level of care, concierge medicine costs between $50 and $2,500 per
month. They practice the way doctors used to in this country before large
corporations started buying up hospitals and running them as businesses. It’s a
sad, frustrating situation. I’m just glad I had the good sense to leave the ER before
I had a stroke. I wonder if having a stroke on site is what it takes to be seen
right away. As with many things, health care in America is only a human right
for the people who can afford it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment