Over the past few months I’ve had some personal experiences with both local and Provincial Health Care.
After leaving work one day in April with severe back pain and sitting in the Yarmouth Hospital waiting room for over four hours I decided to leave and go home! I knew that at least there I could do something to treat the pain and perhaps help my back. Neither of which I had received after being in the Out Patients Waiting Room during my four hour wait.
Before I left I asked to speak to a nurse and waited another half hour before I took another number! I knew that if I took another number it would mean I got to speak to the triage nurse again when my second number was called.
For those of you who don’t know, when you take a number you’re called to see the triage nurse then sent back to sit in the waiting room for hours. (There are many stories of people, even seniors, sitting there for over eight hours before they left to go home in pain seemingly no closer to any treatment or care than when they went there.)
So, after taking the second number I was called in to see a sneering triage nurse. I asked her if I could get a note saying I had been there for over four hours and had received no treatment. I explained that I was going home to do something for my back and that I wanted the note for work… in case I was questioned about my leaving work. The nurse asked if I had not taken any pain medicine before I came in.
I pointed to her clip board that held my chart that they had created on my original visit to the triage nurse earlier that day. I told her that if she read the chart she would see that as I had already told them I had not taken any thing before I arrived their earlier that day.
The nurse barked at me not to point at her, I responded ” I was pointing at the chart, and it’s my finger and I’ll point it here I want to”. (It may not have been my best course of action). However, I really don’t think it required the action the Nurse took!
The Nurse proceeded to call a Code White and which signaled the Police to the Hospital at which time I was given an official escort out of the building! A bit of an over reaction I thought!
After all, I was not cursing, I was not violent, and I’m hardly an intimidating person!
Yet due, I suppose, to the Nurse being overly stressed as a result of an over burdened and seemingly under funded system she felt it necessary to affectivel close down an already over full Out Patients / Emergency Room while having me removed under Police escort. (To say nothing about the waste of the Police resources).
In any case that was my first personal encounter with our wonderful Health Care System. (Actually I should more accurately say it was my first encounter in a number of years).
Following this experience I had five sessions of Physical Therapy and saw mself getting worse with each one!
When I asked the Therapist if she thought it was helping and how, she got mad at me for asking! After I tried to reword my question three or four times and still had got no answer from her as to how she thought it was helping, or if it was helping, she finally said, “there’s a whole room of people out there that it’s helping!” To me she had missed or totally tried to ignore the point. I wasn’t asking if she thought Physio helped people, I was asking if she thought it was helping me, and if so how? Since she could not, or would not, answer my question I left and never returned. (Interesting to note that within a few days after stopping the Physical Therapy things began to improve!)
Then in July I visited a Back Specialist in Halifax. After asking me the same basic questions of how, where, when, and what happened, ignoring a family history I tried to tell him about, and having me touch my toes twice and tapping up and down my back once he looked at me and said, “Well I guess you don’t need anything further”!
Needless to say, His was another office I left with less than satisfactory results!
The only other piece of information I had by this time was one lower back x-ray ordered by my GP that showed slight curvature of the spine and bone spurs.
Now, I did recover for about a month and was doing fairly well till August when I again was off my feet and mostly in bed for four days and a week or so of recovery time. All at home, after all I was not in a hurry to return to the Yarmouth, or any other, Out Patients Department.
Then through Sept and October I got better, then in November I went off my feet again! I stayed at home and took off the shelf meds such as Robacacet and Tylenol. For a few days things seemed to improve though i still needed a wheelchair to get around the house. Then a few days latter I lost my ability to walk and went to the Yarmouth Hospital by ambulance. I was in excruciating pain!
This is when things began to improve, at least where basic treatment was concerned. Thanks to the ER staff and Dr. Cottreau they soon had the pain under control and Dr. Cottreau had me addmitted to Hospital where I stayed for two days and had x-rays and a CT Scan as ordered by her.
I should interject here that DR. Cottreau had ordered these tests becaus, as she said and as the look in her eyes indicated, she felt there was something more than the curvature, bone spurs, and slight disc degeneration that was causing the pain I was in. I now know she was right, and I’ll get to the later.
After a couple of days in Hospital I was released and after a week or so I managed to make the trip to Halifax to see my GP (General Practitioner - Family Doctor). I have a GP in Halifax and not in Yarmouth for two reasons. Dr. Carbyn, - my GP is one of the best Doctors there is, and I’m among the thousands of people who live in Yarmouth who cn not get a Doctor in Yarmouth due to lack of Medical Professionals and other regulations that are causing our Health Care System to be crippled!
After going to Halifax and seeing Dr. Carbyn he looked at me and said, “There is nothing pinching your nerve and causing you to be paralyzed, so what do you want me to do!?”
Needless to say I left, mad — angry — frustrated — and ready to give up!!!
Thankfully I was able to surround myself with the right friends following that visit to my Doctor! Otherwise I may not be writing this Post today!
One of the friends, who works in the Health Care field came clean with me and told me that due to the way the system is set up, the lack of funds compounded by the demands on the system and the frustrations and attitudes of Health Care Workers the only way a person with spinal or disc problems would get treatment was when they worsened to the point that they became paralyzed and lost control of bodily functions! Otherwise the course of treatment was to prescribe pain killers, anti-inflammatories, and such!!!
I also discovered that the Specialist I saw in July was more of a hatchet man for Worker Comp and the Insurance Companies than a practicing surgeon!
It was with this knowledge and understanding that I began to understand the reaction and comments made by my GP, Dr. Carbyn., and perhaps the frustrations of our Health Care Workers. that really do care but work under such crippling conditions that it causes them to become frustrated and ready to go off like the Triage Nurse had in the Yarmouth Out Patients in April.
Now, I want to take a moment here and say that along my journey there have been some remarkable Health Care Workers. Dr. Cottreau, the ER Staff, and Nurses of 4 North, who as I told the Nurses when I left the hospital have restored my faith in the Yarmouth Hospital, which had been destroyed in April — even to the point of my unwillingness to go to the hospital till I had no choice and was taken there by ambulance.
I also want to give you all a clearer picture of just how bad things are in the ER and Hospital here. When I went in to the ER by ambulance there were no available pillows, when I was admitted to Hospital there were no rooms available and I spent to days in the Patient Lounge on a stretcher (and not in a bed) and still found a shortage of pillows for the first part of my stay! I only include this that you might all better understand the types of demands and shortages that are faced by our Health Care Workers on a daily basis.
The good thing is that there are still some Health Care Workers, though few in number, that rise above these crippling conditions and challenges to do their utmost to provide good care for patients.
So, perhaps the next time we encounter those over burdened, over stressed, and perhaps less than chipper Health Care Workers we’ll all take a moment to realize that though we may be in pain, they like us are likely Nova Scotian’s Crippled By Health Care. (or perhaps more accurately stated by a Health Care System that is crippling health care!!!
I also feel that I would be amiss to close this post without sharing some of my ideas, observations , and ideas.
It is no secret that one reason there is such a burden on our Health Care System is that people use the Out Patient / ER Department as a drop in service for every sniffle and that in many cases we all can do a better job of controlling this. I’m sure you all know of people who head off to the Out Patients because little Johnny has a sniffle and takes the other six kids with them! Not only can little Johnny’s cold be looked after at home but now they’ve also exposed the other kids to other possible viruses which will begin the whole process over next week!
The other are that we’re all quick to point fingers at is the Government. After all, most people seem to think, they have all the money why not spend more? Few people seem to realize the only money a Gov’t. has is what comes out of our pockets! There’s also the issue of Politics that goes into misappropriation, unnecessary spending, and waste, versus proper spending and prioritizing. However there is not enough room here to go into all that! (Perhaps in a future Post)!
The other thing that I’ve discovered is that as much as 60 - 80% of back pain (and perhaps other conditions) is misdiagnosed and then made worse by either narrow minded, or simply misinformed, Medical Professionals . That to is a topic for another Blog Post!
Watch for it coming soon! I think I’ll entitle it
” Majority Of Back Pain May Be Misdiagnosed”
Addressing all of these situations is desperately needed here in Nova Scotia. Or we’ll see even more Nova Scotian’s Crippled By Health Care
I’d love to hear your comments, good and otherwise!
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
brian@brianhurlburt.com
