What’s Wrong with this Picture? A View From the Waiting Room
The following is a true story – my wife and I witnessed it this afternoon in a doctor’s waiting room. To me it provided a major “Where’s Waldo” type picture of many (if not most) of the things wrong in 21st century America. See how many you can spot, both at an individual and societal level.
Walking down the hall to the waiting room, I hear a tiny voice behind me say “That’s MY toy!” and the rapid pitter patter of little feet. In the waiting room, several others are discussing how long the little girl has been running around while her mother tries vainly to catch her. Finally she does, and as they come in to the waiting room I see a woman in her twenties with one leg in a huge brace and on crutches. Another woman helps her get her daughter back in her stroller and buckled in, as I gather up the girl’s scattered shoes. Someone else gathers up toys thought to be the little girl’s which turn out to belong to the doctor’s office.
Clearly unhappy with her inability to taunt her injured mother further, the little girl squirms and cries trying to escape the stroller. The mother’s response is to tell the little girl that she has lost her trip to McDonalds after the doctor because she “is mean”.
A few minutes later, the woman is informed that the doctor does not participate in the insurance plan she has, and if she wants to be seen she will have to pay cash upfront. She responds that she does not have the cash, so she will “go back to the emergency room”.
The woman is now clearly going from stressed to hysterical, and as she is trying to sort out pushing a stroller while on crutches, her daughter is still trying to squirm out of the stroller and chanting “Madonal, Madonal, Madonal”. The mother screams “NO” and pushes the stroller hard, crashing it into the doorframe. She then tosses her crutches on the floor and burst into tears.
The doctor and nurse come running at the sound of the crash. The little girl, somehow not hurt, has gone silent for the first time since I had arrived. The nurse asks the mother “Are you alright?” The doctor asks “Did the crutches fall?” The nurse gets the woman to sit down and offers her some water. Pretty quickly, they retreat back into the exam room area.
My wife is livid and follows them back there to make sure they understand that the woman did not “drop her crutches”, she threw them and her kid in a stroller into the doorway. The doctor replies that my wife is welcome to call the police, but the last time they did that they had to wait five hours for social services to show up.
Meanwhile, the woman gets on her cell phone and calls someone who is apparently her significant other, saying she needs him to come get her at the doctor’s office. She tells him about the insurance issue and that her (or possibly his) mother made the appointment for her but didn’t check if the doctor accepted her insurance plan. Though she is obviously distraught, the only response from the other side of the call is “Why do I have to come there and get you?” Eventually she hangs up on him. Several people offer to help her out to her car, and eventually she accepts one of the offers.
When we get in to see the doctor, he is talking about how it is common for people to have “hissy fits” when they find out they have to pay for a visit upfront, and how he hates it when people think of healthcare as a right instead of a privilege. I’m not sure if that was before or after he introduced us to the medical student who was shadowing him.
I was pretty quiet through all this, mostly because I didn’t know who to tear into first: the brat, the bitch, or the Hypocritic Oath staff. I doubt any of them would see themselves as part of the problem. It’s about six hours later as I write this, and I doubt any of them are still upset (other than about not getting McDonalds), but I am.
I wonder if the little girl will grow up to toss her “mean” kids around when the junk food bribes don’t work.
I wonder if the woman will ever be grown up enough to make her own doctor’s appointment, or cut loose the insignificant other.
I wonder what the med student would say she learned today.
I wonder if we’ll ever have healthcare system and not a medical industry.
I wonder how we can ever expect a bureaucracy to care if even the doctors don’t.
I wonder why I should care, but I do.
Thanks Mom & Dad.