“Eat your food as your medicines. Otherwise you have to eat medicines as your food.” [Amatellah]
‘ER wait times in New Brunswick hit breaking point,’ reads the headline of the July 5th edition of The Telegraph Journal.
Patients who have experienced waits of 4-5 or more hours on previous visits are now offered the option of taking an appointment to be seen in another facility should they feel they need ER care. Non-urgent cases will still have to wait, perhaps several hours. Knowing that, patients may start doing something truly remarkable. They may begin assessing whether they REALLY need to go to the ER at all, let alone sit there for 5 hours only to be seen and told they have indigestion or a slight cold that requires nothing more than fluids and rest. How often has that happened? Really?
Every day someone, from the very young to the very old, compromises his body through often repeated behaviour that affects quality life with little regard to consequences until critical mass is reached — rather like the condition plaguing our health care system.
We have all the latest and greatest modern technology so why can’t we get seen in a timely fashion? After all, what are we paying for? Why aren’t the doctors paying attention to us? Why are the folks in the ER admitting station running around, not seeming to be doing much of anything, other than running around?
That, my friend, is the impression held by those who don’t think about how their own behaviour affects their health, and very often the health of the system in place to assist - the ER! Thousands of people are afflicted with the ‘dis’ease called ‘head in the sand syndrome’. In their sometimes, or dare I say, frequent misguided logic, they’re going to the ER because they believe they’re really sick, sort of sick, a little sick, or that cut on their left finger, or a rash on their right knee requires emergency treatment. Little thought is given to the distinct possibility that it is through their own behaviour that they find themselves in distress. There seems to be little or no personal accountability, and with that is another reality. Everybody, and I do mean EVERY body pays for what you, and you and you are doing to YOUR body.
What’s the solution, you ask? The answers are closer to home than you think and if you stayed home and really thought about what you may have done that contributed to that sick feeling, the cut on your left finger, or the rash on your right knee, you realise that the cure for any one of those ailments is as close as your kitchen cupboard or your medicine cabinet.
I’m not going to go on ad nauseum about the garbage in, garbage out philosophy. Most of us are able to grasp that concept and once we realise we may be the cause of quite a few of our own troubles, we will make effort to self-correct, self-regulate. Some need a bit more prodding because they’ve become accustomed to having their errors and omissions dealt with by someone else - and so is born what I like to call the ‘professional patient’.
As a cardiac patient, I will never discount chest pain of any kind, especially if it’s accompanied by sweats, jaw pain, and/or lower to mid back pain. If you have a history of cardiac issues, then you’d already know what to do. Calling ahead, in advance of an ER visit, to consult with a nurse might allow you to decide whether to wait it out or to actually go in. Chewing on a couple of aspirins and having a bit of wine has long been acknowledged as being helpful if one is in the throes of a cardiac event. Consulting with your physician to establish an ‘if this happens’ protocol is always helpful. That action alone may reduce the need to prematurely rush off to the ER. Note, though, that alcohol consumption post-cardiac event is something that must be discussed with your physician as alcohol may interfere with certain drugs taken to treat the healing heart. Let common sense be your guide. There’s that personal accountability thing again.
As well, and to conclude today’s life lesson, paying attention to how you fuel your body so that it efficiently performs, goes a long way to reducing ER visits. The same is also true with your family members. Very early on, if parents educate their children to focus on eating to live, the frequency with which they catch colds or suffer headaches, or stomach pains, joint pains, and muscle pains diminishes. Good habits at home reduces the tax on the health care system, making it more accessible to more people with you and yours as part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem. Sounds like a good idea to me. What say you?
Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca
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