From the moment I started working in 1981, I have paid exorbitant amounts of income tax. One year Bill and I paid over 110,000 (part of that was a capital gains).
For the most part I am happy to pay my taxes. I mean after all look what we get in return. Schools, roads, infrastructure, legal aid, hospitals, medical....just a minute. Did I say medical?
Well its true. I have had operations, tests, and the occasional, every three months, doctor appointments to renew my prescriptions.
And today was the day. I took my last pills last night. So I started the process of finding a walk in clinic. There is no such thing as a family doctor here, at least not in a timely time frame.
I found the nearest clinic on google and read the instructions. Get there early. There is a sign up board outside. They will call you and tell you when your appointment is.
So I get up at 6:30. Do Wrangler and get him into the jeep. I decided to take him with me. And down we drive to the clinic. I got there at five to seven.
And...there is already a line up. No board to sign up outside. Just a line up. I get out and get into line. Veterans of this clinic tell me that a sign up clip board comes out at eight o'clock. You sign up and then you come back at nine. You wait inside until your name is called and you are given an appointment time to come back to. Sometimes that doesn't happen until ten or 11 o'clock.
As I stood there people started flocking towards the clinic. It reminded me of being in Burnaby at the Willingdon MacDonalds around eight at night. Crows fly into the field beside McD's from all over the lower mainland...slowly floating in until the sky is black with them. Before you could say Bob's your uncle, our lineup snaked down the long sidewalk and out of sight around the corner.
In this line up were young and old, some coughing, some clearly sick, leaning on the building, heads down, eyes shut. And an amazing amount of them would have someone hold their spot in line whilst they went over there to smoke. Everyone was shivering with cold and moving slowly from one foot to the other, rocking back and forth. And this was at seven.
As the hour went by more and more people showed up. One poor woman had two little ones about 2 and 4 and she had a newborn in a stroller. There was an old man with a younger person, the old man in a wheelchair. When they realized the system and how it worked the younger one put the old man back into their car and he came and stood in line.
Un frigging believable!!! Un frigging acceptable. I know there are those out there that say its getting better here in Kamloops but I sure as hell haven't seen evidence of that. And when the clip board did come by and I signed up, I noticed there were only fifty spaces for names. So if anyone was past that they were shit out of luck.
And I do have some opinions on how we could start to fix this...starting with Dr's salaries. In my opinion only, we need to pay our doctors more, way higher up the priority scale than free frigging day care, especially for households making 48,000 bucks. Having a kid is a choice, needing a doctor is not. Just saying.
Okay now its later in the day. I went back down to the clinic at nine. The waiting room had 47 people in it. All the people that were on the sign up sheet were there and a bunch of walk in hopefuls and a few that had appointments somehow. It took until 9:45 for her to call people up one at a time and either tell them to take a seat and wait or come back at a later specific time.
I was one to take a seat. At 10:25 I got called in to see the doctor. I was in there for about five minutes. The male doctor had the most gorgeous hair. I am pretty sure he was transitioning. Anyway after he did what I wanted (which did NOT involve taking my blood pressure or blood sugar...hah!!! I win) I told him he had gorgeous hair. He was so fricken pleased and even blushed! He asked me what my blood pressure was and I said 110 over 60 ....NOT...and he asked my sugars and I said 4 ....NOT.... and that was it!
Meanwhile, when I went out into the waiting room, the receptionist was busy telling everyone that they had reached their limit for the day, so had the other two clinics in the town and if it was important to go to the hospital.
I REST MY CASE!
TTYL
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