RCWEALTH

Early Morning Situation:
Woke up at 4am to catch a bus in order to reach the Hospital for an appointment at 8am. Arriving early, I realise that opening hours are actually 8am and nothing is achieved by reaching earlier (me:7am). The security present was issuing numbers beforehand to persons as they arrive. I got #17. So I just had to sit and wait as the office staff and medical personnel filter in as the time drew closer for work to begin. Here is a brief overview of the process:
Step 1: Get a date for return. (First you have to get a referral from a medical doctor. Bring it to the hospital and get a date to return.)

Today is my date of returning

Step 2: Return and get a #, sit and wait.

Step 3: Visit Skin/Plastic Surgery Department, join a line just to have your number written on your referral form.

Step 4: Go to Registration Department, join another line to get registered

Step 5: Hand in my referal paper at the registration desk then sit and wait.

Step 6: Enquire about my referral, because someone came after and got registered before me. I was told to sit and wait again.

Step 7: Registration finally completed.

Step 8: Hand in my health card and sign an authorization form for my card to be charged. (Note this is a different room)

Step 9: Return to the Dept at step 3; sit and wait until my docket has arrived before my name is called.

Step 10: Relieve myself at the bathroom and then return to sitting and waiting; Oh and have my snack / breakfast.

Step 12: Docket arrives, name called. Sit, wait, shuffle along the seats as each person before me is called in to see a doctor.

Step 13: Called into an office by a doctor who spends the time assessing me; asking a series of questions; only then to realise surgery will not be today. Im actually here only to get a date to return for surgery. But wait…surgeries are already booked for this year and the new “surgery book” for next year is not yet ready…..sooooo I cant even get an appointment for surgery.

Therefore…..

Step 14: Im sent back to the front desk nurse, who writes the date for my return on my wonderfully, newly written, pink registration card and sent on my merry way home…..awesome! Not!

This is the process one has to follow in order to access “free” health care in Jamaica. The process can be long and tedious. Buju Banton sang “To be poor is a crime”. The inability of one to afford private health care is a major contributing factor as to why many die when serious illness occurs or when diagnosed with any condition that requires immediate surgery. The poor has very limited options and in many cases no option.
Good thing my surgery is a minor operation and the issue is not life threatning. I can still go on living if it gets done or not. This is not my way of discrediting the efforts of the staff at the hospital. I am just making a comparison to having options when you can afford to do so. A schedule at a private institute using laser treatment would be a doozy once your referral is made. It would only cost probably in excess of $50k and up. Thats an estimate by the way. My gratitude to God for a healthy life thus far. Maybe I was not to go under the knife or maybe not yet. Who knows?