I can’t get no…family doctor
Being new to Ontario, my wife and I assiduously followed the Ontario Health Insurance Plan instructions and put our names on a waiting list for a family doctor. We learned that there are about 250,000 supplicants without a personal physician in our city alone. By the time we’re allocated a sawbones, the proverbial bucket will definitely have been kicked.
Ah, but there are walk-in clinics, you say. Well, on numerous occasions, we have walked right in and have been told to walk right back out again.
As opposed to the Hotel California, at these clinics you can check in but you have to leave.
No new patients accepted!
After a dozen or so such experiences, we learned of a clinic that would see new patients, located about 90 minutes away by light rail and bus, in a strip mall. We were allocated a 10-minute visit and told to mention only one “concern.”
At the rudimentary – if not to say sketchy – clinic, the attending physician, who provided only a first name and a last initial, informed us that the system was irrevocably broken. I told him so was my foot.
He sent me to another distant strip mall for walk-in X-rays. We walked in and this time refused to walk back out.
We have learned that Ontario practices and promotes discretionary walk-in, walk-out, strip-mall medicine.
Medicinal strip-tease.
So I penned this foolish parody of the great Rolling Stones hit “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
(Today the group would be called The Kidney Stones.)
I can’t get no…family doctor
I can’t get no family doctor;
I’m about to croak; it’s such a shocker.
Though I try and I try and I try and I try,
I can’t get no, I can’t get no, I can’t get no…no family doctor!
When I’m ridin’ on the bus
And the man comes on the radio
He’s tellin’ me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to drive my imagination:
I’m supposed to go on a list
With two million other sickly people
Soon we won’t exist…
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no
Hey, hey, hey, that’s what I say…
I can’t get no family doctor;
I’m about to croak; it’s such a shocker.
Though I try and I try and I try and I try,
I can’t get no, I can’t get no, I can’t get no…no family doctor!
When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How sick I’m gonna be…
But I won’t be gettin’ well
‘Cus the healthcare system’s gone right straight to hell…
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no
Hey, hey, hey, that’s what I say…
I can’t get no family doctor;
I’m about to croak; it’s such a shocker.
Though I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no, I can’t get no, I can’t get no
Family doctor…no family doctor…no family doctor.
When I’m ridin’ ’round the world
And I’m doin’ this and I’m signing that
And I’m tryin’ to see a shrink
Who tells me Mister better come back, maybe next year…ha!
‘Cause I see you’ve got so much to fear…
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no
Hey, hey, hey, that’s what I say
I can’t get no, I can’t get no,
I can’t get no, I can’t get no,
No family doctor, no family doctor
NO FAMILY DOCTOR!
Your friend,
Robert
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