PUBLIC HEALTHCARE AND THE THREE'S COMPANY PRINCIPLE
or How to only bring one date to the Regal Beagle
There are two things I love.
Three’s Company and Canada’s Public Healthcare.
I wanted to be Jack Tripper so much.
So cool, funny, and ready for madcap mayhem with his two good looking roommates
Jack only had one flaw.
Well… he, as we all do, have many flaws actually but the one flaw at the heart of every conflict and obstacle he faced in life was…
Communication.
Like, just tell the pretty art teacher who just moved in next door that you just wanted to get to know her better and you’re not really comfortable posing in the nude, Jack.
Miscommunication and lack of communication were at the root of most, if not all, of Jack’s problems.
I refer to this as the Three’s Company Principle.
Lack of communication results in miscommunication and/or unnecessary actions.
Canada’s public healthcare is Jack Tripper.
Smart, caring, and a bit shit at communication.
This was once again made evident to me recently when a medication my Dad, who suffers from Parkinson’s dementia, was recently prescribed for sleeping (actually, so he would sleep so my Mom could sleep) was causing him to become like a strung-out zombie on a heroin comedown for more than 24 hours.
It was evident the medicine wasn’t working.
Or that it was working way too well.
No problem.
My Mom spoke to the pharmacist and the pharmacist decided to reduce the dosage of his sleeping pill to 1/4.
Great!
My Dad stays occasionally at a respite care home for a couple of nights a month, which is an absolute godsend for my Mom’s sanity.
The staff are wonderful.
Like a tourist in an all-inclusive resort in Cuba, my Dad has no idea where he is or the history of where he is really… but he enjoys it.
They called me late afternoon and explained that my Dad was doing a one-man Walking Dead impression. Light on the ‘walking’ and heavy on the ‘dead’.
I went over and observed my Dad looking like an addict who is one hit away from ODing.
That’s not to make light of addicts or ODing.
That’s just how he looked.
It wasn’t good and it was hard for me, his son, to see him like that.
So I called his doctor’s office and explained the situation.
They return the call and say they had now informed the pharmacy to reduce the dosage of his sleeping pill to 1/4.
Which, as is evident by my use of bold format, was already done by the pharmacist.
And that’s where, I believe, Canada’s Public Healthcare turns into a life or death episode of Three’s Company.
The absence of communication.
This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
Do I think the doctor or pharmacist should be on the phone updating every little change for every patient?
No.
We have computers for that.
It is maddening to think that my Dad’s doctor, who is amazing, would waste her time (and our money) deducing a plan of action that was based on incomplete information.
At the risk of sounding like an old guy…
In this day and age why can’t healthcare professionals, with consent, pull up one centralized file on me and be able update and review that file?
I want my doctor to know what my pharmacist did and vice versa.
I want my RMT to know that I fell of a cliff when I was 19.
Actually, scratch that last one. It’s unnecessary. I tell the cliff story to everyone.
I want my healthcare professionals to have all of the up to the minute information they need to make decisions in the most effective and efficient way possible.
This issues with communication, it seems to an idiot like me, must be a massive waste of money for healthcare.
Yes, privacy this and privacy that… but I want at least the option to give my consent for that information to be securely shared with the people who are trying to keep me alive.
Let’s leave the zany miscommunications to Jack.
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Absolutely.... thanks for putting it so well
This is especially an issue for me right now. I moved to Stratford from Toronto last October, and am still on a waiting list for a family Doctor. It's a real challenge to get my prescriptions refilled, never mind trying to get the dosages adjusted. Maybe you could start a pettion to be sent to someone way higher up than us :)