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Telehealth Ontario is a free service that offers health advice given by a nurse. For the times when you wonder whether a fever is high enough to be worried about, or whether your son’s bump on the head could be serious, it is a great timesaver.

But it can be a great source of worry too. I called one Sunday to ask if I needed to see my doctor about a lingering cough. I hate to sit for hours in a doctor’s office (even with an appointment) if I don’t have to. I happened to mention that I had chest pain and was over 50 years old.

Since the nurse can’t see you, she immediately thinks worst case scenario. She advised me to get to the hospital right away since it was a matter of life or death and wanted to call me an ambulance. As you can imagine, the call upset me quite a bit.

I promised to go right to the hospital, where I waited for five hours and had a number of tests, all of them coming back showing no health problems. The hospital receptionist told me that because a heart attack could be a possibility, Telehealth Ontario always sends people to the hospital.

A good precaution, but it makes me a little more careful about calling for health advice again.

Technorati Tags: Telehealth Ontario, health advice, doctor, hospital

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These days in Ontario, it is very difficult to find a family doctor. When we moved to Cambridge, we called a number of doctors before we found one that was taking new patients. Then we each had to fill out a medical history and wait while the doctor decided if she could take us. 

Appointments are booked for specific times, but a one hour wait isn’t unusual, so remember to bring a book.

Since this was a new doctor, we were booked for a complete physical, including blood tests. Since I am over 50, I also had a bone density test, which is a special x-ray of your body while you are lying down.

What do you look for in a doctor?

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There seems to be a bit of a doctor shortage in Toronto these days. The walk-in clinic down the street has not been able to offer that service for months now because they have not been able to hire a doctor.

Finding a specialist is just as difficult. One of my daughters is 7 months pregnant and has yet to find a doctor to deliver her baby. The obstetrician who was recommended has yet to reply to numerous phone calls. And forget about complaining to her family doctor, she does not have one of those either.

If all else fails, the local hospital and any doctor that is available will have to deliver the baby when the time comes.

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After waiting a few weeks for a hospital bed to become available, my aunt finally had surgery on the 15 pound tumor in her abdomen. Only the tumor was now 25 pounds and the added weight caused another organ to tear. So, of course, more surgery had to be performed. That was six weeks ago and the dear lady is still in hospital. In their haste to help her recovery, a lung was punctured, but hey, a woman in her 70’s can bounce right back, right?

Well, she did! It was touch and go for a while there, but Aunt T. is finally on the mend. Another few weeks and they might even send her to rehab. This is when we really appreciate our ‘free’ medical care, otherwise we would have to pay for the hospital errors out of our own pocket!

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Lately, our family have been experiencing first-hand, our “wonderful” health care system here in Canada. For those of you in less fortunate countries, we have free public health care – which means we don’t pay when we see the doctor or need hospital care (unless we want upgraded facilities, like a semi-private room). We are heavily taxed for this privilege, mind you, and have the idea that when we do need health care, it will be there for us.

Well, now my aunt needs health care. She is elderly and has a 15 pound tumour in her stomach. Once the doctors established that the tumour was benign, I guess she went down on the priority pole. After being admitted for surgery a few weeks ago (at a highly regarded hospital here in Toronto), she spent the next four hours waiting in a cubicle in a hard wheelchair. Next, she was discharged and sent home because there were no beds.

The following week, my aunt was admitted again and after a few hours had her intravenous inserted – a good sign, or so we thought. This time she stayed for an extra couple of hours and was then told that the doctor was still busy with someone else, so she would be discharged again. Although she did have the option of waiting until midnight when her then exhausted surgeon would be able to operate. Oh, but there were no beds again, so that wouldn’t be a good choice either.

So after many tears, my thoroughly frustrated aunt took yet another trip back to her home on the other side of the city. The hospital staff assured her that the surgery might be possible in July, so in the meantime she can hire someone to stay with her and use her walker to get around.

If anyone were to ask me right now, the option of private care is looking pretty good. Like the saying goes, “you get what you pay for”.

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