Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Pandemic pressure squeezes out all kinds of people

We have some very ded­i­cated and con­sci­en­tious physi­cians and phar­ma­cists out there — but we also have some who are still dri­ven by dol­lars and cents.  I’ve had an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence with the Province of Ontario’s response to the H1N1 influenza pan­demic these past few weeks.  I’ve seen some of the back-end of how the health sys­tem is respond­ing to the sit­u­a­tion.  That’s because I’ve been man­ning the phones at one of the Province’s tele­phone sup­port lines, and I’ve seen and heard a few things either directly or through my colleagues.

The Province has pur­chased a huge whack­load of Tam­i­flu antivi­ral med­ica­tion, and it is giv­ing it for free to any­one who needs it because they (a) have H1N1 — which is every frickin’ per­son out there right now who has flu (seri­ously) — and (b) are at risk of com­pli­ca­tions from the flu because of under­ly­ing health con­di­tions, etc etc.  Some phar­ma­cists are very con­sci­en­tious and ask if they should really be fill­ing pre­scrip­tions for patients who come in for Tam­i­flu, but whom they know have no health issues that put them at risk of com­pli­ca­tions.  On the other hand, some phar­ma­cists ask if they have to use the gov­ern­ment stock and give it for free when the patients have a drug plan that will pay for the drug from the pharmacy’s com­mer­cial stock.  They still want to make a few more bucks off this.

Is this wrong?  No, I don’t think so, but I think the aroma has a hint of stink to it.

Now what about physi­cians?  Yes, there are many hard­work­ing physi­cians in our sys­tem who deserve kudos and our appre­ci­a­tion.  There are also those for whom it’s about the dol­lars and about show­ing them the money.  I won’t say what doc­tors are mak­ing at the Province’s flu assess­ment cen­tres, but it’s a fair bit.  It makes what union­ized auto work­ers at GM make work­ing on over­time look like chump change, though.  Well, we’ve come across doc­tors who won’t work at the flu assess­ment cen­tres sim­ply because it’s not enough money.  It’s more money in one hour than many peo­ple make in a day, but it’s not enough.

You decide for your­self what that shows, and what you think about that.

I’ll just close by say­ing all of this reminds me of some­thing I heard from a fam­ily friend.  Actu­ally, he’s almost a rel­a­tive.  He’s a lawyer — maybe that says it all, I don’t know.  When we asked him to help us on a legal issue, he told us “My rate of $600 an hour is a bar­gain.”  If that’s what he’s charg­ing to fam­ily, I’m curi­ous to find out what he charges Joe Schmoe off the street.

There are good doc­tors out there.  There are good phar­ma­cists.  Maybe there are good lawyers too, but then again maybe fairies are real.  In any case, pres­sure reveals a lot — and in the case of our med­ical sys­tem, the pan­demic pres­sure squeezes out all kinds of people.