Spewing Molten Rock

Lava looks so serene when it's in a lamp, but doesn't it look furious when it spews out of a volcano?  I feel like that volcano when I think about the Alberta health care system.  The wait times for publically funded surgeries in Alberta are well above the national average.  Earlier this year Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky and Alberta Health Services president Stephen Duckett made an announcement that they will inject $8 million into health services to increase the number of surgeries by ten percent over the year.

$8 million?  That seems pretty paltry to me.  It's unacceptable when people have to wait 6-9 months for a knee or hip replacement.  At one time it was a 5-year wait for cataract surgery.  What really makes me laugh is Duckett calling this latest effort a "blitz".  Oh come on!  It's a drop in a bucket!

I've been shafted for years in this floundering, inefficient quagmire of a health care system.  I'm all for a 2-tiered medical system.  If it shortens the surgery queue, why not?  If I can pay to not be in pain, why not?   Look at me.  I'm already out thousands of dollars trying to find some relief for my chronic back pain.  I would have gladly paid all that money from the start to someone privately who could help me.  But, here in Alberta, good help is hard to find.  Heck, I can't even find a spinal surgeon.  The average wait time for a general practitioner to find a specialist for a patient is supposedly 10 weeks.  10 weeks?  That's nothing!  I'll be waiting over a year for a referral to a spinal surgeon!  Those were words out of my GP's mouth, over a year!!!

I'm waiting for a nerve ablation procedure for my lower back.  The spinal care centre took years to decide that I should be tested to see if I would be a suitable candidate for the procedure.  When they finally decided, I had to wait 6 months for the testing.  When I got the results they told me I'd have to wait about 9 months for the procedure.  I thought that was lousy, but I accepted that.  And I waited in agony.  I kept it touch by calling and asking about the queue.  Shucks, the wait time grew to 12-15 months!  Incredible.  I was angry.

I finally decided to get to the heart of things.  Through various calls to the hospital I talked to someone who really knew what was going on.  Apparently I had my information all wrong from the start.  Ablation procedures take 18 months from when the hospital receives the patient's paperwork.  Oooh, not good at all.  But the kicker is this:  the radiologists who perform this procedure at the hospital come from the very same spinal care centre that I've been going to for years.  Uh, wait a sec.  The spinal care centre has been stringing me along and deceiving me into thinking that I will get the procedure done much sooner that could ever realistically happen.  Did they think that would pacify me?  No, I'm a volcano -- an angry, erupting volcano with a geyser of hot lava spraying everything in sight.

Most health officials would agree that to wait 6 months in agony is too long.  It's inhumane.  It's a putrefying pile of bullshit.  Well, how about waiting 3 times as long as that in agony.  How about waiting 18 months in horrific pain?  Spend a day in my shoes Ed Stelmach, and then tell me you'd wait 18 fucking months!

I paid $770 out of my own pocket for an MRI.  No doctor wanted to give me a requisition for one, mainly because the wait time for one was too long.  Yes, another one of those unbelievable stories.  What the MRI did tell me was that I have a tear in my L5/S1 disk and it's bulging on my left side.  That was just another tidbit of information that no one seemed to care about.  My physiotherapist, who calls the shots at the spinal care centre, basically told me to take drugs and don't do anything to aggravate it.  Well, every day things aggravate it, and I'm allergic to the two prescribed anti-inflammatories.  Why am I listening to a physiotherapist anyway?  Why don't they have real doctors running this clinic!?

Finally, today I bit the bullet.  I collected all the (incomplete) records I could obtain, and I sent them to a spinal specialist who works in a private clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia.  I'm seeking a consultation, a lovely $750 consultation and I want some answers.  I've stayed at this two-bit operation, they call a clinic, in Alberta for too long.  Why have I been going to a spinal care centre where a physiotherapist makes the decisions, and a part-time general practitioner oversees these decisions?  I'm not even in the care of a specialist to begin with.  I'm an idiot.  I've trusted the medical system for too long.  Now I'm going to pay my way out of this hellhole.  If this Dr. in Vancouver thinks he can help me, I'll be out thousands of dollars.  There is no cure, only temporary relief.  However, at this point I have no choice.  If I don't find help soon I will go mentally insane.