Manitoba Health: Teaching Manitobans how to Suffer efficiently.

PHOTO/ Government of MBwebsite

The Manitoba Healthcare System teaches you how to learn to suffer efficiently. That's my experience anyway.

I've got a bad gallbladder; there's a stone blocking my common bile duct. (If you and I are friends in real life or on any social media forum, you probably know this already. I've been complaining about it for months. Sadly for you, I will likely continue to complain about it for another couple of months, until I get it removed.)

My situation is common I've learned; lots of people suffer from gallstones. They're not critical until they cause liver damage, and even then they are likely not critical. However if they do cause liver damage, the damage is irreversible. Unless your liver or pancreas are in immediate jeopardy, there is very little ER doctors in Manitoba can, or will do for you.

It's good news that my liver is fine, however, in a sense, it's also bad news because I don't warrant emergency care and my healthy liver has to take a few more months of daily "beatings" before I can get treatment.

Don't get me wrong about the healthcare professionals in this province; I appreciate them and the work they do very much. I appreciate the empathy most of the ER doctors who I have seen (which, over the months have been many) express towards me while I'm experiencing what I can only call a crisis; and I appreciate the painkillers they give me (usually a combination of morphine or demoral and Gravol) that help ease the pain; and I appreciate that they work hard, and have to prioritize their patients based on how dire each person's situation is. Most, if not all, doctors work very, very hard.

However under our current healthcare system, my situation is only dire to me.

I don't blame the doctors, I blame the inadequate healthcare system in this province.

Healthcare professionals in Manitoba are overworked, often shorthanded, and see far more critical cases then mine on a day-to-day basis. Gallbladder attacks, a colleague who used to suffer from the same attacks said to me,  are "a dime a dozen in the ER." They likely aren't going to kill you, unlike the person in front or behind you in the triage desk line, who might be suffering from something critical.

Still, the attacks hurt. No, they damn near kill. The pain of a gallbladder attack is so intense they are often compared to childbirth. Since I don't have kids, I can't make that comparison. However, I can describe the increasingly frequent attacks as one of the most painful, if not the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.

The attacks leave me debilitated, curled up in a ball, crying, and hoping that my painkillers kick in soon. Yet, even when they do, the Tylonol 3 or Percocet (otherwise known as Oxycodone) I have been prescribed are no match for the attacks. At this point, my only hopeless hope is that the stoned and sedentary affects of the drugs put me to sleep, so I can escape the stabbing and burning feeling that radiates throughout my body.

It's almost become a nightly routine. A complete nightmare.

I will get surgery, I've already seen a specialist who has confirmed that I need to have my gallbladder removed, although it will still be another couple of months before that happens. Until then I just have to continue to cope with the aide of highly addictive painkillers and a non-fat diet. (For the record, my gallbladder is so far gone, even foods with zero fat trigger massive attacks.)

I'm frustrated.

I don't know how to fix this fractured system; I see it as a failure of our government. However, I'm not sure how any governmental party can fix this kind of system. I tried, to no avail, to reach out to an MLA from the opposition party who tweeted out a media release slamming our healthcare system. I tweeted back at her, asking what her party would do differently. I'm not sure she has a solution, or would have told me if she did, but her lack of response gave her media release little credibility. It seems the media release was merely a finger-pointing campaign at the NDP.

(For the record, I actually agreed with her point that the curent Manitoba healthcare system is a failure. I don't think our government is doing enough for the people of our province when it comes to quality care in a timely fashion.)

Healthcare has seemingly become a political pissing contest; it's more about politics and finger-pointing then it is about patient care.

I realize the system is "free." I realize that perhaps the government has made strides and changes in various areas of this system. I realize that this is an abyss of a problem that will likely never be solved. However, that doesn't mean certain areas can't be fixed. The system operates on an emergency basis, overlooking people with painful or non-life threatening illnesses by making them wait and using band-aide solutions; In my case, an elevating prescription for more potent and more addictive painkillers.

There is not much logic in that type of action.

Throwing highly addictive painkillers at people and making them wait months for care is not only a recipe for disaster, but it causes a whole new set of problems for the patients and for all Manitobans, including our government.

How many people are knocking off drugstores for Oxy? How many people could have avoided drug addictions or runoff health issues if they received the care they needed in a timely manner? How many people become a strain on other parts of the system because they can't function normally due to their untreated illness'? How many people have to learn how to suffer efficiently?

Bottom line: Manitoba Health is a failing system. It needs to be fixed.