An article from Dutch News. Well, this is the sort of things that we have to endure here....
Patients’ organisations today began calling on doctors to be more available, not only via the telephone but also person to person. It’s about time. Dutch doctors have long had the reputation for refusing to prescribe drugs in the first place - that whole ‘pain has a purpose’ idea - but now it seems that getting to see or simply speak to your GP after 3pm is nigh on impossible.
The reason? First of all you have to get past the doctor’s assistant. The doctor’s assistant seems to have acquired a medical degree and will now demand to know the intricacies of your complaint before you can go any further. Then she will happily advise you to swill out your ears with olive oil to loosen the wax or buy nose drops for your persistent snuffles. Anything to keep you from actually turning up at the surgery. And if you actually get as far as making an appointment, it will probably be for next week because the doctor has so many patients that any surgery time is already booked up.
As for home visits, you have to be on your deathbed before your GP will deign to put his or her nose past your front door. That puking child with a 40 degree fever has to be dressed and brought to the surgery to happily infect all the other patients. No wonder the doctor’s assistant didn’t want you to turn up in the first place.
Well, so far we have not yet encounter any emergency cases. For a peace of mind, you would like at least an assuarance that such emergencies, especially relating to your child, be available when you need it. Having said that, when Aidan had the severe eczema, we brought him to A&E Sittard Hospital on Sunday. Even that we were told to call first, of which of course I didn't know, yet alone the number.....And yes, it was only the medical assistant...So, if you're back home, appreciate it. And if you're working for Petronas, be grateful because you can be assuared that you and your spouse and all your children are covered....for free...!
The fact is, and true to the words of many the grass is greener because there are too much fertiliser, or in shorter word, sh** :) tu la namanya hujan emas negeri orang......
H
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
News Bulletin....
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3 comments:
Hi Zaza & Hardy
I've in fact two stories of my own whereby one of them is when my mother-in-law's boyfriend was diagnosed with prostate cancer, they went to see the doctors in the hospital and was told that he just has to endure it since they don't want to prescribe him with any treatments or drugs. After his daughter told my mother-in-law to get a second opinion maybe in Belgium, then the doctors finally agreed to give him chemotherapy and prescribe some morphine for the pain. But alas, he died last year in august.
Another story is Raymond's friend's daughter was diagnosed with a tumor in her stomach a few years ago and of course the doctors in the Sittard hospital were very casual about it and said they don't do surgery of that sort. Giel (Raymond's friend)was so furious about how the doctors reacted that he demanded his daughter's medical files back but was refused. When he threatend to call in a lawyer, the files were returned and they managed to get treatment in a hospital in Rotterdam. The tumor was pretty big and if any longer, it'd have burst and she'd have died.
Sometimes malas nak tengok doctor kalau sakit. Ada aje karenahnya. Rozie
True true Zaza. Dahlia fell sick often after she turned 1 and each time we brought her to the doctor's, they shooed us off home saying she needed to 'sick it out'. I reckon it's something we need to do once in a while but to make a child suffer in pain is just cruel. That Orbis park thing is just a joke - if they're already bad now can you imagine what they'll be like with a bigger facility? I doubt bigger facilities will make any difference!
R, sorry to hear that. My colleague told me to exaggerate it a bit. Instead of having the symptoms yesterday, tell them you had it for 3-4 days already. Then they'll schedule you in quickly.
M, let's see how Orbis Park will take off. Bottomline is, we are all more of a bunch of numbers rather than human beings....
H
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