I've lost my voice completely over the weekend. I can't speak, can't sleep, can't sit still for five minutes without heaving all my energy into coughing for my dry throat. What started out as a harmless sore throat on Wednesday, got worse as the week(end) progressed. So the first thing on my agenda for Monday morning was to see the doctor for a dose of anything that would let me sleep and kill this sore throat.

I've been on the phone for 2 hours whispering my condition in my hacked non-voice. First was a call to the office of my PCP. She was on vacation, I found out. Ok, so how about seeing anyone else that was available? No one, I was told. Try urgent care. Well, if I wanted to go to urgent care, I wouldn't have waited till Monday morning! So I called another clinic within the same group. The receptionist said she couldn't see me at this clinic, since my PCP didn't belong here. So my question was, how do I go about seeing SOMEONE/ANYONE for my condition without enduring four hours at urgent care (that term is a misnomer in this country). She said call back your original clinic and ask to leave a message for the doctor on-call. Oookkkk, so why wasn't I given this option the first time? So I call back, croak my problem over again, get DISCONNECTED, have to call back AGAIN, and am told the same thing- no appointments. Can I leave a message please? Yes sure, the on-call doctor will call you right back. So I'm waiting for a call from the doctor, and the receptionist calls right back. Magically, an appointment has opened for later in the evening. So do you still want to speak to the doctor (because of course, this comes for free, an appoitnment doesn't). I say yes, and I'm still waiting to here from the clinic. I think I might have (sort of) worked the system this time, but not without losing out somehow.

So the lengthy passage is the prelude to my complaint. The state of health affairs in this country is just deplorable. You have to jump hoops to see someone for something as common as the common cold, wait forever on the phone, go and wait forever in the clinic, its endless. They have fancy systems like urgent care and emergency rooms set up, and the health care people coax you in that direction without batting an eyelid. There are some ailments that are less urgent than urgent care, and hardly qualify as emergencies, and sometimes you just need to speak to a doctor, that's all. And they cost so much more than regular visits to your PCP, that both you and your insurance end up paying a heavy price for these services. The health care industry exploits the insurance system, with utter disregard to the patient. And its people with a sprained foot, cut fingers and croaky voices that have to pay the price!