Monday, September 15, 2008

adventures of eye care



Beware, its going to be a rant....

Well, my short one needs glasses pretty badly. He brought this to my attention a few days ago, and in the meantime I got a call from his teacher about how he was squinting at the board. That will make all four of us with glasses. I called the hospital to try to get Nate an appointment with the eye clinic and was told that they were not taking appointments and in fact had a waiting list! WTH???

Well, can't you just book it out a bit?

Sorry Ma'am. They are booked solid through the end of November and are not taking any appointments.

Well, is there any alternative? I mean, he can't see the board, its really distressing him.

Hmm...would you like to put your name on the waiting list for the next available appointment?

Wait a minute, there has to be a priority for a kid in school who can't see and has never had glasses, versus someone who just wants their annual routine exam, isn't there? I mean, is there an alternative here?

Alternative?

I mean, is there something else we could do or somewhere else I could take him? He can't just wait until Christmas! He used to ace the spelling bee and now he can't even see the words...

Maybe I should explain again. They are not taking appointments right now, but you can put his name on a waiting list. Would you like to put his name on the waiting list?

Well I guess so but is there another place I can take him and have tricare cover it? A place where they speak English??

I wouldn't know about that Ma'am. What is the child's first name?



Well, after that lovely exchange I started to heat up a bit. Sure, I put his name on a list. Then I emailed his primary MD who he has not actually seen in the last two years. I did not hear back, but who knows, maybe on leave a bit, or the Navy has deployed him somewhere else???

I makes me angry that there is not sufficient resources to serve the people we have here properly, and yet we have a hugemonguluos ship coming with lots of sailors and that is going to make things even worse. I hear that active duty have priority, and in some ways I understand that. But our children have no choice but to live here with their parents and they deserve health care as much as anyone else. We don't want to live in crisis triage mode all of our lives, for every little appointment.
If this is the way it is going to be, then I can't wait to get back to the States where there are more consumer back doors, rather than dependent on a huge organization that just doesn't seem to care as much about me and the kids.
Then I decided to take him to the Japanese glasses store in the mall and pay myself, the ole consumer back door.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! You crack me up! But how frustrating! Good thing you were able to get him glasses via your translating friend. Just out of curiosity when Yuri leaves will you have anyone else who can translate? Love the picture by the way. H

Peevish said...

This is totally outrageous, Wendy!!! You can bet your bippy I'm taking it for action.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Peeves! I actually did get a call a couple of days ago that something opened up in October, but I just turned it down, since we already went. Auuuughghg...