Seeing Mr. P’s walking arrival at Thursday night’s meal for the hungry on the grassy roadside of Gladys underscored the fact that although it is annoying and demeaning, it is not being treated as second class citizens that worry’s the homeless, mentally ill, addicted, poor and powerless when they HAVE to deal with the Abbotsford Regional Hospital. Rather, it is the 3rd rate medical treatment that is afforded to ‘second class citizens’. Not simply because one is often sent on ones way without receiving even minimally adequate care or receiving care that complicates or exacerbates the problem, but because the ‘treatment’ one gets at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital can be downright deadly to one’s survival.
If that statement seems less than charitable it is because I have experienced the less than professional ‘care’ dispensed to the homeless and powerless and over the years have watched the toll that the behavior at Abbotsford Regional Hospital has exacted from the homeless community.
I am personally reminded of this fact of life for ‘second class citizens’ every time my neck acts up and I need to have it lanced and go on antibiotics.
This is a result of the time several years ago I went to Emergency to have an infection in/on my neck lanced and the cyst removed. As I say, I could have lived with the doctor’s attitude – if only he had done a proper job and removed all the cyst.
He didn’t, so every once in a while the piece of cyst he didn’t clean out causes an infection which needs to be lanced to drain the pus and other assorted gunk and a course of antibiotics. A process I go to a walk in clinic for, rather than risk a return to Emergency.
In light of the problems and complications the treatment afforded ‘second class citizens’ at Abbotsford Regional Hospital causes I consider myself lucky to suffer what is more of an annoyance than a threat to life or limb.
Last spring (2010) I attended the memorial for Laurie McDonald, a member of Abbotsford’s homeless community who had the misfortune to seek medical attention at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre.
She had gone to Emergency several times to seek treatment for balance problems and had been sent away after having been told she was fine.
The next time she had balance problems she was in Saskatchewan and went to a hospital in Swift Current (I believe). Which quickly, after a few tests, sent her to Regina where tests showed her balance problems were caused by a brain tumour. Within days Laurie was in surgery, which was successful. Unfortunately she died of complications.
To be accurate the unfortunate thing about her death was that she had gone to Abbotsford Regional Hospital’s Emergency for over a year about her balance rather than the hospital in Swift Current Saskatchewan.
A disturbing thought/reality is that if Laurie had sought medical treatment in Saskatchewan first, rather than at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, it could well have been a life saving decision.
Mr. P’s walking arrival at the Thursday night dinner was notable because it was not that many weeks ago that Mr. P was unable to walk more than a few steps and appeared to be knocking at deaths door. Over months and weeks he had been repeatedly hauled off by ambulance to Emergency at Abbotsford Regional Hospital. Despite the increasing frequency of his visits to Abbotsford Regional Hospital’s Emergency he just kept getting worse – heading downhill at an increasing rate.
It looked like Mr. P was not long for this world – until he was fortunate enough to be in Mission when he needed to seek medical treatment.
They admitted him to the Mission Hospital for several days, over which time they ran tests to see what was causing his health problems. As a result of the treatment Mr. P received at Mission Hospital he reappeared in Abbotsford bright eyed and bushy tailed. Alive, well and capable of walking to this Thursday night dinner.
Which is why Mr. P’s walking along the road to the dinner on Thursday night called to mind the unacceptable state of affairs at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital – were for ‘second class citizens’ seeking medical care, their best way of achieving good medical care is to catch the Valley Connector to Mission and Mission Hospital or go to the Greyhound station and catch a bus to Saskatchewan.