If you live in Newfoundland, you are drilled with the idea that this place needs more doctors. The health care system isn't in a good enough position and wait times to see doctors are very long because of lack of doctors. I don't have numbers on doctors in this province, and I don't intend to disagree with this idea. But how come no one ever talks about other types of people we need to keep the health care system running? Social workers, nurses, counsellors, pharmacists, home therapists. No one says we need more of these people to improve the health care system. When in fact these are probably the kind of people we need more of.
Newfoundland is a rural area and sometimes the people can only be seen by a nurse or a social worker. Once their need for further treatment is recognised by these professionals, they can then be referred to doctors for further treatment.
So, I say that Newfoundland needs to focus on increasing their supply of health professionals who assist physicians just as much as doctors and they need to stop giving huge raises to just the top professionals.
I don't think that people want to be seen by social workers or nurses. They want an actual doctor. I'm from a rural area, and I can't tell you how many times friends and family members have been misdiagnosed and sent home, only to find later that they had serious conditions. Some have even died. We need more hospital and ER doctors, more on-call clinic doctors, and above all, more specialists. It shouldn't take months to see an oncologist. Cancer is notoriously impatient.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, it took me 9 hours to see a doctor when I went to the Health Sciences ER last week.
I really appreciate your comment. I am not saying that Newfoundland doesn't need doctors. But I think the delays are not only because of lack of doctors. There are many surgeries that get delayed because the surgeon doesn't have enough nurses on staff. And I am necessarily mean cancer and things like that, but mental health issue is a huge deal in Newfoundland. There really isn't enough professionals to provide help.
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