Doctoring in the County

Well, we’ve been in our new home for 4 months now and there’s lots to reflect on! Fixing a swampy pool, booking heating contractors to fix our hot water radiators before the temperature plummets to -25, convincing Hydro to cut down a dead 50-foot tree before it falls onto our power lines or our kitchen, finding a plumber to fix a very leaky sink. And then of course there’s the fun of finding a vet, an optometrist, a dentist, a hair salon, a gym, a trainer, and of course a long list of assorted contractors.

Best of all is (was) the search for a doctor. After some very simple poking around, it became clear that finding a doctor was going to be a challenge (impossible). The social media sites were all the same. “Can anyone recommend a doctor who is taking patients?” Answer: “No.”

In Ontario, there is now a service called Health Connect which you can join if and only if you don’t already have a family doctor, and it is supposed to act like a wait-list. Health Connect matches you with a doctor as soon as one becomes available, prioritized according to your medical needs. (This simply means if you are healthy, you’re looking at a 4 year wait. At least.)

After signing up for this service (“service”), I bravely downloaded a list of local doctors and clinics and started making calls. This lasted until my 4th call to a clinic where, when I asked if they were taking patients, the receptionist said “I don’t actually book any of the doctors here, but even so I can tell you that none of our 57* doctors are taking new patients. I also can’t tell you of anyone who is.” This course of action was too depressing to continue.

At this point, all I really needed was an Ontario doctor to re-issue a blood test req so I could pop into a local LifeLabs and have my iron level tested, just to confirm it’s back to normal so I can stop taking supplements, which are yucky. Not a problem, this is what walk-in clinics are for! So, on the Friday before Thanksgiving I headed off to a walk-in clinic in Belleville, 30 minutes away. The clinic I preferred turned out to be closed that day (“the” doctor had car trouble and couldn’t make it in). I drove to a second clinic that was closed because it was the Friday before a long weekend (what?). The third one I tried didn’t even exist. It seemed like it may have been converted to an Animal Hospital. The 4th clinic was at a pharmacy and was also closed on account of its proximity to a holiday Monday, but the pharmacist gave me a phone number of “someone who would help me”. Long story short, this helpful number was for a telemedicine service which is basically on-line doctoring.

I tried the walk-in clinic option a week later, and my preferred clinic was closed again due to the doctor having a family emergency. I didn’t even bother to try further.

Meanwhile, Jeff found, through his research, the “Ontario Virtual Care Clinic” (www.seethedoctor.ca), a doctoring service for very simple health related questions. I signed up, was immediately put into queue, less than 3 hours later I was on the phone with my randomly selected virtual doctor who reissued my blood test req in about 5 mins. Thank you, random doctor!

After a very easy visit to LifeLabs, my results came back with good iron levels but also elevated “eosinophils”. A visit to Doctor Google (sorry Chrystal!) provided an immediate diagnosis: I either had leukemia or a parasitic infection. Crap.

Back to the walk-in clinic, and lo! Third time lucky, my preferred clinic was open! I’ll just mention here that I bestowed preferred status upon this clinic because it seemed to present itself as a clinic with real doctors (or “doctor”) rather than some weird front for a Telemedicine virtual doctor service. I say seemed because as it turned out, the doctor was actually a nurse practioner** who’s job was to take all of my vital information and then video-conference in a random doctor to provide a diagnosis. The nurse was lovely and thoroughly enjoyed my Google-based self-diagnosis. To engage with the doctor, she stood at attention front of a large monitor like she was about to present me to the Queen of England. “Your majesty, introducing Ms. Risa Zaleski, a female of 56 years who is presenting with slightly elevated eosinophils!” The video doctor diagnosed what the nurse practioner already knew. I do not have leukemia or a parasite. I have allergies.

And that is how you Doctor in the County:

• The “Ontario Virtual Care Clinic” for easy questions and answers via random doctor video conference from the comfort of my office desk chair
• The Great Lakes Walk-in Clinic for nurse-facilitated video-doctor care
• The Emergency Room for everything else

*It wasn’t 57, it just felt that way as I sat through the voice menu recording: For Dr Smith, press 1. For Dr Jones, press 2. For Dr Sharma, press 3….blahblahblah…. For other doctors, press 9.

**She was, in fact, a doctor, fully educated in India, and just working through getting her corresponding medical license in Canada. We make these poor people jump through hoops despite having a serious and health-threatening shortage of doctors.