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2006-09-23 - 1:51 p.m.

...medical issues...

Yesterday I was finally able to get information regarding our health coverage in Canada / BC. It took quite some tooth-pulling to activate our benefits office on this issue - and in fact I finally got some help because the person who was supposed to be helping me went out of town, and left the task to another (more competent) woman in the same office. She solved our problems immediately. The good news is that I now have a health care number, and I can see a doctor. The bad news is that my dental care will not take effect until November 1st.

The weird news is that a quick search of ob-gyns in the greater vancouver area reveals that there are NONE accepting new patients. In fact there are only about 100 total. ??? Can this be? I had heard from several people that there is a scarcity of physicians in Vancouver - apparently they all head south of the border for the higher salaries and greener pastures of the US healthcare system (??). So I was amazed to learn that my chances of seeing an ob/gyn are essentially nil.

I was chatting with Blighty about this this morning, and her comment was...so, what does a pregnant woman do if she moves to Vancouver? I immediate thought was that she must have to take a lot of taxis. After all, aren't taxi drivers used to delivering babies? That's how it happens in the movies, right? I don't think I'd build a health care system around that.

Through my travels I've noticed that healthcare is run differently in every country, and passions never fail to run high on the topic. I think it's a bit like banks and money - healthcare is closely relate to a personal sense of well-being and so people tend to have strong opinions about what should or should not be done.

I'm just confused about this new one here, and I'm guessing that my chance of going to a specialist are non-existent, and so I just relay on using one of the 110 general practitioners out there. So, I don't know anyone in town. How do I choose? I went to the BC physicians and surgeons list and immediately eliminated all people with names like "Atila," but really, what else do you do? I just randomly selected a person downtown and I guess I'll just go downtown and hope that I like her...sheesh. I hate this.

So then blighty asked me if it is easier to find a vet. (for the cats, not for me). so I did a search. the first hit was a holistic vet who practices cat acupuncture. OY. The mental image. The mental image. "Step 1. Hold cat down. Step 2. Insert needle. Step 3. Remove cat from ceiling." I'll keep looking.

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