Health-card delays add to the systemic bottleneck

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2024 (540 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was an experience that, as a Canadian, I’d never had before.

One I hope I never have again. And it’s going to nag at me for a long time.

It was Saturday, and I was at a walk-in clinic in Winnipeg, needing to see a doctor.

The waiting room was what you’d expect: small children with coughs that sounded as if they were pack-a-day smokers, tired babies reduced to metronomically crying, people checking in at the Plexiglas counter and trying to talk loud enough to answer questions about why they wanted to see the doctor, while also speaking quietly enough to keep from informing the whole room about their particular condition.

There were a couple of wall-mounted televisions with whispering sports, and a low table of children’s toys — plastic blocks and puzzles — that probably should have had their own biohazard placards, for all the deposits their individual pieces were carrying. A mix of different chairs, a grey-black carpet with a quiet pattern and above the fray, near the ceiling, two different models of security cameras, taking it all in.

So what was the experience?

For the first time, I was told that if I needed to see a doctor, I’d have to pay.

In this instance, cash.

For the first time, I was told that if I needed to see a doctor, I’d have to pay. In this instance, cash.

I’ve been waiting since mid-September for the province to issue me a Manitoba Health card after applying online and providing electronic copies of all the needed documents.

First, I was told by return email, the office that issued the cards was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of applications. (At that point, it was long enough ago that we had a Progressive Conservative government.)

Then, months in, I was told my application would have to be updated, because, after the lengthy wait for it to be processed, some of the documentation I’d submitted was no longer current enough to be considered credible.

(I swear I heard Franz Kafka muttering in the background.)

So, I provided more documentation.

After that, nothing.

E-mails vanished into the ether; phone calls were met with a voicemail message saying things were extremely busy, and then automatically hanging up the call without even allowing you to leave a message.

Eventually, I wound up waiting in line in person at a downtown Winnipeg office with all my documentation to try and break the health-card logjam, while all around me, there was signage claiming online was a much easier route. (I’m sure Kafka was giggling by then.)

A couple of points here.

In case you’re wondering about the magic of having a health card, I can tell you that a simple first consultation with a doctor in a clinic costs about $120.

Stop and think about that for a moment. Really.

Imagine you’ve got a couple of kids, with the usual smattering of ear infections, rashes and persistent coughs.

Or maybe you or your spouse is pregnant — the regular checkups would be one heck of a burden, let alone the cost of any hospital time.

This time, I had the money — and, apparently, I can submit the receipt to MHI and eventually receive a refund.

I look forward to that provrdd with something less than delight.

But there were three others at the clinic that day who also didn’t have Manitoba Health cards. One was able to dig up the payment, but the other two left untreated — saying that, instead of using the clinic, they’d go to a city emergency room instead.

That’s an incredibly inefficient way to treat issues that could be handled at a clinic far more cheaply: the broad range of services on standby in an emergency room are not needed for basic general treatment.

That’s an incredibly inefficient way to treat issues that could be handled at a clinic far more cheaply: the broad range of services on standby in an emergency room are not needed for basic general treatment.

The beauty of weekend clinics, of walk-in clinics generally, is that they can take the pressure off emergency rooms and decrease the staggering wait times many ERs have — wait times that not only affect patients and their treatment, but exhaust and demoralize ER physicians, nurses and other health-care workers.

Think about it: ER staff are highly-specialized and trained to stabilize critically ill patients and, once stabilized, move them into hospital wards.

Instead, those specialists are pinched at both ends: on one side, hospital beds are full of patients who can’t be moved to long-term care, because there aren’t enough beds. So they stay in emergency rooms for constant care, waiting.

On the other end, emergency rooms are packed with patients — who shouldn’t even be there — becoming progressively more angry and frustrated as emergency-room wait times grow and grow.

It’s a recipe for doctors and nurses to simply pack it in.

For me, there was one more irony.

My Manitoba Health card arrived Monday, seven months after the application was originally made, and just four months after the absolute final deadline imposed by the Canada Health Act.

Next: maybe find a family doctor, the next medical lottery win.

And in case you think this is just a Manitoba problem, when I gave up my space with my family doctor in Newfoundland in 2021 because I was moving (at that point, to Saskatoon) my overloaded doctor graciously took on my daughter in my stead.

My daughter had been working in P.E.I., where she hadn’t been able to find a family doctor for years. I worked in Saskatoon for two years and didn’t have a family doctor for a single day of that time.

This isn’t going to be fixed overnight and it can get worse much faster. It’s not just a need for this many doctors and that many new hospital beds: it’s lots and lots of little fractures. Compounding.

Because everything’s connected. Right down to your health card.