Wow. I've spent the last couple of days too weak to eat. Yesterday was pretty much too weak to breathe, so went to hospital; waited. Made self better by applying wet cloth to face and drinking milk, while overworked hospital staff ignored me. Doctor examined, asked questions, did not listen to answers - didn't have time to, obviously. Same old shit. Eventually got antibiotics, left hospital. Ah yes, our wonderful health care system. It may be a derelict, grossly overburdened mess of shit, but at least it's the same one for all of us, and that's really what's important, isn't it?

I tell you, if I were a doctor, or even a nurse in this province, perhaps this country, I would have buggered off or changed careers long ago. I'm in the hospital with some nasty illness pretty much every year, and whenever I go there, they're more frustrated and more overworked than before. The treatments I've received range from spartan and formulaic to dangerous and irresponsible (what good is a doctor who tries to dispense medicine to someone before reading their goddamn chart and finding out they're allergic to it?), and you know, I don't blame a single health care professional I've run across for anything that's happened. It's everyone else that's to blame. We have a dream of nationalized health care. Now we drop that dream on their shoulders and see what they do with it. Every year, demand more. Every year, provide less. When it snaps, we'll probably blame the cowardice and unprofessionalism of doctors and nurses everywhere, and convince ourselves that it's really their problem - some sort of acute collective incompetence. And all the while the real experts - the general public, of course - will be able to sound off their mouths about glorious ideals that no Canadian can let go of, just enough to convince themselves of their lack of complicity. Then Bird flu will mutate, and our one remaining doctor will be ordered to treat everyone with six unsterilized hypos and a quart of vaccine. And we'll wonder why it doesn't work.

 

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