MELLIPOP VISITS HER LOCAL GP

Ok so yesterday I surrendered to the highway robbery of a health system here in WA and went and saw a bloody GP.

In hindsight, I would have been better off:

* Heading off to JB Hi Fi and buying the new Kath and Kim DVD, with change left over from my $50 to grab a schooner at the pub before heading home

* Putting my $50 on a 100-1 long shot at the trots

* Walking up to some random stranger in the street, handing my $50 over and asking them to tell me that I look “stressed”

* Donating the $50 to my dead sponsor child through World Vision Read the whole tragic story here

So I go to see Dr Do-Nothing at the Sweatshop Medical Centre in Perth and surprisingly, am promptly ushered in for my appointment. Good start. I drag Anton in with me because for some reason I turn into a total dribbling pussy when I am in a doctor’s office (eek….not such a good adjective to use there…..)

Seriously, you know how some people get really nervous and shaky when they are forced into public speaking. I’m like that with doctors. Normally I have this loud rock-sturdy voice you can easily hear 30 feet away in a packed-out pub, but I turn into a quiet little church mouse when I’m in with the doc. Pathetic squeaky little rodent that I am.

So anyway, I'm in with the doc and begin to haltingly describe my symptoms when the phone starts ringing. THE DOCTOR ANSWERED THE FUCKING PHONE IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CONSULTATION! Now if it had been a short 30 second conversation I could almost have been cool with that.

But I got to sit there for TEN MINUTES while he was speaking to this guy or chick who obviously had some mentally ill mother who was refusing to go into aged care and the doctor kept saying that “I can’t talk about it for privacy reasons” whilst throwing pointed looks in my direction, but I still got to hear all the juicy stuff about this poor woman’s paranoia and mental deterioration and how they were both scheming to lock her away.

THEN HE RINGS SOME OTHER DUDE FOR HER “PRI” TEST RESULTS.

THEN HE RINGS THE HEARTLESS, SCHEMING CHILD BACK TO GIVE THEM THE “PRI” TEST RESULTS.

And all the while Anton and I are sitting there having a nice old conversation about the new sunglasses he just bought that day, how wacky all the one-way streets in the CBD are and how windy it is outside. And the whole time I’m thinking “I have to give this fucker $50!”

So anyway, Dr Do-Nothing gets off the phone, promptly apologises and continues with my consultation, telling me nothing I haven’t heard already about migraines (or that I couldn’t have got off the ‘net) and writes me out THREE prescriptions for various potent drugs, none of which I intend to fill because I am there to discover and treat the cause of my recent illness and not just to medicate the symptoms. Why I expected a doctor of Western medicine to help me with this I will never know.

So both Anton and I asked about maybe getting some blood tests done so we could maybe find out if there is any biochemical reason for my recent illness. I soon found out that a $50 consultation doesn’t buy you blood tests, henceforth I now have a referral to some other greedy, sucking arm of the WA health industry for my blood and pee-pee testing.

Then once I have had the tests done (at God-knows-what outrageous expense) , I get to take another one of my hard-earned $50 notes back to Dr Do-Nothing so that he can “go through the test results” with me… And maybe I’ll also find out what eventually happens to that poor old mentally ill mother they were both trying to maneuver into the obscurity of aged health care, WA-style.

Only God can help you now, lady. I just hope you’ve got plenty of $50’s buried in the backyard somewhere, hidden away from that evil scheming child and these bloodsucking health professionals.