Medical "care"

Or lack there of.

So I am probably just being a paranoid new parent. But in my American Academy of Pediatrics book it says that when an infant has had a cough for 5-7 days, and it doesn't go away, take them to the doctor. Now a paranoid mother would have ignored that advice and taken the baby immediately. That makes me officially NOT paranoid.

I called the doctor at 8:30am. First off my complaint there. I could.not.get.through. I finally left a message on the appointments answering machine. After a number of calls back, apparently my messages got somewhere. The nurse calls me to tell me that they are too busy to see Leif both today AND tomorrow. If he has a cough to take him to the emergency room, and she follows that up with "you do have insurance don't you?"!

The emergency room, you have got to be kidding me! Ok, April going off here... that sounds like total abuse of the insurance system and a waste of the ER staff time. Leif had signs of asthma when he was a few months younger and we bought him a nebulizer and have albuterol for him. We have been giving treatments as a preventative measure with the strict instruction that we call the doc when we do this so she can listen to him. But no... we are to take him to the ER for a cough? We WILL take him to the ER if he shows signs of difficulty breathing, but seriously now.

Oh and I should add that according to the doctor an Urgent Care facility would not be appropriate because they wouldn't do a blood gas to check his O2 saturation. Really? I am just beside myself. At least an Urgent Care facility would listen to his chest!

I know it is a busy flu time, but I think it is appropriate for his doctor to listen to his chest since she was the one that diagnosed him with asthma. But they apparently didn't have this written in his chart or something, because the nurse was unaware of his asthma background.

I decided to do the Urgent Care thing and just called them. Yay, they are open till 8pm. But wait, they have a 2 hour wait right now! What?! So Leif could go sit in the waiting room where he would likely pick up more and nastier bugs. Or we can just go home and have an evening at home. I will choose the later. Ok, hereby classify me as a horrible parent.

I just can't believe the quality of doctors here. It really is good that we are on top of our medical care and knowledgeable, intelligent people. Because if you aren't, forget about it. Is it really too much to expect that the phone get answered and at least talk to a receptionist? To know that your call is being addressed by someone - it might take an hour or two, but someone WILL call you back? Is it too much to ask that when said person calls you back that the doctor might have actually read the history instead of just prescribing the standard "get off my back will ya" response?

The medical field sucks. When *I* worked in medicine we actually cared and tried. And man, if the doctor I worked with ever found out patients weren't getting to talk to a real person, there was hell to pay.

I am hereby jumping from the medical professions bandwagon that states that healthcare is best privatized, and that doctors are not overpaid over to the consumer bandwagon that says "hello have you ever tried to see a doctor and to speak to one for longer than 5 minutes?" I hereby am calling for REFORM!