I got the lack-of-family-doctor blues

When I left the military in 1999, one of the first things I realized that I needed to do was find a family doctor. Little did I know the adventure I was about to embark upon.

For the first few years, I had been able to make do with visits to the local Medi-Centre(s) around Calgary, but this was always for corrective treatment - I had no patient / doctor relationship with anyone. In time I saw the need for a doctor I could develop a working relationship with so I didn't have to keep telling the same stories over and over again. Darlene and I found out by accident that a new pair of doctors had taken up practise at our closest medical clinic just a few blocks away - a husband and wife team from South Africa. Perfect! A he for me and a her for Darlene.

For the first few visits, everything went well. Then they moved to a clinic on the other side of the city, which totally sucked. We still kept going, but then I had the big cholesterol medication argument with him (see story here). Fired (see story here) . Found a new doctor at the same nearby medical centre as before and he was very reasonable. Yay! Finally I had found a family doctor I can live with permanently. Darlene had a very bad run of doctor try-outs, the details of which I will not go into. Suffice to say, after at least 5 years of frustration and agony, she finally followed me to my current doctor, which worked out great. Even my step-daughter came along once she moved to Calgary 6 months ago. One big happy family seeing one awesome family doctor.

Fast forward to today. We'll be losing our doctor in July. He and another doctor from the local clinic are moving to a new practise a little further away. No big deal. What is a big deal is that unless we come up with $3000 per year (per person) to join him in his new 'private' clinic, we have to kiss him goodbye. I truly cannot afford to follow him to this new practise, even though they'll have state of the art facilities, guaranteed time with patients, on-site specialist staffing and so on. I just can't afford to pay $6000 per year to get the kind of service we should be getting for free. And that's what really irks me the most. I don't really blame him for wanting to set up a private practise. He made it clear that he feels like he's cheating his patients under the current model. I do blame the government for letting the health care system, which was once the envy of the world, slip into a sorry state. A state consisting of a severe doctor shortage; 15 minute visits (if you're lucky); double bookings; lost test results; crappy office customer service due to over-worked staff; unreal wait times for specialists and specialist services (9+ month waits for MRI are not unusual - unless you're willing to 'pay' for it); the list goes on. Yet our government doesn't think we need to pay health care premiums anymore because of how well the system is running. I don't get it.

So the search for a new family doctor is on again. Good luck to us all.