Wow, I am so disappointed in our medical care in the military. My wife and I attended our first OB/GYN appointment for her pregnancy. I have spent the past couple months, now, reading books and researching pregnancy and things I will need to know as an expectant father. So, I walked into the appointment with 35 questions I was planning on asking the Doctor. Some of which for informational, but the vast majority were to make sure we had picked the right doctor. The questions ranged from the doctors philosophy on performing a C-Section vs. natural birth, to what prenatal tests we should consider, to even the method of delivery that this doctor prefers when delivering our new child. I was shocked to find out that this appointment (our 6-8 week appointment) was instead with a rude nurse who’s only job was to give us information packets and schedule our next appointment… at a different hospital, with a staff of nurses (not doctors) who were going to be doing every one of our appointments throughout the pregnancy all the way up until Brittney goes into labor…. And has a strange new doctor who has never seen us before deliver the baby. I was even more shocked when I asked about alternative options (IE civilian care) to ensure our continuity of care that I was denied and then previously said rude nurse insisted that they would not refer us to anyone else. After all, the government has a budget to consider. The safety of my wife and child are secondary to the cost of simply allowing us to interview another doctor for our preferences. All of my 35 questions were useless. It doesnt matter to them that I want to ensure that we get the right doctor. I’ll take what they give me. I had already been disappointed when we were required to use an automated computer (not at all unlike those at airport check-in stations) to receive a ticket (identical to the DMV) to get called to a window so we could tell the nurse we had an appointment. This disappointment only darkened when I also realized that this impersonal incontinuitous healthcare was my only option. In fact, if my wife and I have preferences for the birth, be it Cesarean or Natural, medicated or unmedicated, skin to skin (putting the baby on the mother’s chest/belly directly after birth), to even cutting the umbilical cord, I should annotate them on an online form. Unbelievable. Im supposed to go online and request every detail of the delivery to be performed. I cant instead have, say, a consultation with the doctor to discuss the various methods and the ones that the doctor deems best, first. This hospital has taken the most personal, stressful, and relational event of our lives and has turned it into an assembly line of impersonal computers; a variety of different nurses, all of which are wholly unfamiliar; and streamlined unconcern. I don’t think I need to remind anyone just how embarrassing or personal these doctor’s appointments can be, yet this hospital has no problem forcing their patients to give up any ideas of having a single doctor care for your whole pregnancy and delivery. It would be an entirely different situation if I didnt have to deal with them and I was given the freedom to find the doctor that suits our needs. Its not even like Im requesting a lot. All we want is continuity of care. And this will only be what Americans have to look forward to with the Affordable Care Act. The bottom line ALWAYS trumps freedoms and personal liberties.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 00:19:56 +0000
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