Rural Health Care

When I first started blogging I thought I wanted to write about a city girl gone smalltown, from my RN perspective. Well I think I have pretty much covered the aspects of city girl gone smalltown but I haven't really spoken much about it from a RN perspective. Today that is what I would like to chat about.

When you live in the city, you tend to take a lot of things for granted. Like the proximity and accessibility to stores,schools, libraries,community centers, restaruants and the likes. But most importantly your accessibility to doctors, walk in clinics and hospitals.

When I lived on the mainland (Vancouver) I had 3 hospitals all within 15 min drive from me. One of those hospitals being a major trauma center. I was walking distance from doctor's offices, walk in doctor clinics, medical labs and xray/diagnostic labs. If you needed a GP in the city they are very easy to find....if you had an ear ache and didn't want to make the trip to your GP, you had the option to go to a walk in clinic. Medical services are readibly available in the city. I can't say that about living in a rural community.

I didn't truly appreciate what was readibly available to me until I moved away. The funny thing was....one of the reasons I stayed in the city was for my youngest daughter. When she was eight she had been diagnosed with cancer and required treatment. After many trips to childrens hospital and sitting in many waiting rooms and seeing the anxiety on some of these parents faces I was humbled. I remember talking with one woman who told me they had to make the trip to the city at least once a month(3 -4 hr drive) so their child could have treatment. For them this meant, booking time off work, financially arranging somewhere to stay...and believe me staying in the city is not cheap. She told me that on one particular trip that their vehicle had broken down and that it cost them over $600 to repair, and then they had to stay at a motel. So if you don't have family living in the big city, it can be a very costly experience. It then dawned on me why I use to see so many motorhomes parked in the hospital parking lot....those motorhomes would become their home while their child was being treated in hospital. How tragic. I use to think to myself....it's bad enough that your child is ill but then having to travel such a long distance to get help and the all the financial burden that goes along with it. I felt for those poor families....here I would complain about having to drive in city traffic for 45 mins to get to appointments....it's all in how we percieve isnt' it.

Being active in my nurses union at the time, I would hear stories from my colleagues who worked in the northern communities or rural posts and the challenges they and their patients were faced with when it came to providing adequate care. If a patient suffered a heart attack in a rural community they were stabilized and flown out, to the city sometimes 5 - 6 hours drive away. How isolating for the families and the patient. Research has shown that patients tend to recover quicker when they have a good support network, that being having family close by.

I understand that we all make choices about where we choose to live, but should we have to sacrifice accessibility to health care? I don't know. I guess when people move to more remote locations they think they will always be healthy, never require a doctor. Well they better hope they don't need a doctor to quickly, because they are hard to come by in the rural communities.

Many rural communities lack sufficient doctors. Even in my tourist little town with the highest population of seniors per capita doesn't have enough doctors. I think you have heard me talk about how my docotor was off for 6 weeks himself with an ailment....he didn't have anyone to replace him....patients appointments just got back logged. There is only one walk in clinic that I know of which is about a 20 min drive from me, but that is an after hours clinic open from 5:00 -9:00 pm and you better get there before 5:00 or you won't see a doctor...that is how busy they are. The only other choice is to go to the emergency departments, which is a poor usage of emergency staff and services, but getting to the emergency department is another 45 min. drive away.

I personally have been effected by the lack of accessibility to GP but also to specialists. For example with my recent diagnosis of the herniation of discs in my spine, I have to go see a neurosugeon....he is 3 1/2 drive away.....I have difficulties driving 45 mins as it is....but as I said, I chose to live where I do...and with that comes the down side, the lack of accessibility to doctors.

One can easily get over looked in a small rural community if you are not an advocate for your own health. You have to be out spoken. Keep calling....so they don't forget you. My father in law needs to see an orthopaedic surgeon. He waited approximately 6 weeks to only be told that he couldn't get in to see the surgeon for a consultation for 2 years......2years for a consultation!!!! That is just wrong. Now I recognize there are waiting lists all over our province for surgical procedures...but this is just ridiculous, and it is due largely to the fact that we live in a rural community and there are few orthopaedic surgeons. Again, a choice one makes when they move to a smaller community.

Is there an answer to this.....I don't know.....I love where I live....I wouldn't go live in the city....but there have been times I have been really tempted to hop on the ferry to go see my old GP who was amazing for getting a person in to see specialist or services he felt you needed. So there is a part of me that misses that...but I wouldn't sacrifice the tranquility I recieve from my surroundings and the soaring of eagles overhead.....that in itself can be the best medicine of all.