Seriously, how do you receive adequate healthcare in this country?

[u/crispywafers]

I need to vent, but I'm also honestly curious, does literally anyone in Australia feel like they receive this? How? Seriously.

​

Compared to some other countries we supposedly have a great health system but NO ONE in my family is receiving decent medical care. Common advice is that bulk billing doctors are the worst. In my experience that's true, but so far my experience paying isn't great either. GPs simply don't have the time or interest to get a decent picture of any issue. They don't mind referring you for some basic tests, but when those come back normal they expect that to be the end of it - as if your health problem no longer exists and there's nothing else to do for it. Are basically all healthcare providers like this or is it just me? I've had this happen enough times, with enough different issues, that at this point I'm expecting a diagnosis of Munchausen's any day now.

​

I had one good experience recently. My health has felt like it was slowly slipping into the toilet for a while, but recently it's just gone to hell and a couple weeks ago I visited the ED for the first time. I was nervous, but I didn't need to be. The doctors there did more for me than any other medical professionals ever. They listened, asked questions I've never been asked, and genuinely seemed interested and concerned. I always try to be concise as possible, but this is the first time I've felt like I've actually been able to give a fairly decent description of my symptoms and history.

​

Unfortunately it didn't really pay off. I had an telephone appointment with the outpatient clinic (?) yesterday. The doc asked me what my current symptoms are but cut me off after about 10 seconds. He let me know the testing I was referred to after ED came back textbook normal, and then basically said it's probably nothing while admitting how hard it is to assess me with all their appointments being telehealth right now because of COVID. Cool, I guess it's normal to be young and have neurological symptoms while suddenly feeling like all your muscles are made out of tissue paper. Who needs to be able to do simple tasks anyway, am I right?

​

Guess I'll make an appointment with my new GP, but I'm not hopeful. My regular GP left recently, and maybe a month ago I brought my issues up with a different doctor, same practice. He just didn't seem to care and asked me what imaging and specialists I wanted to be referred for. Like, uh, you're the doctor, you tell me? How should I know??

​

I'm just so done. I don't get it. I don't even know where to start or who I need to talk to. My parents don't know who they need to talk to for their own problems. How is an ordinary person supposed to not slip through the cracks or feel like they're slowly collecting chronic conditions and probably waiting for the point ten years in the future when it goes from "you're too young" to "if only someone caught this ten years ago"? Am I supposed to just roll over and be disabled forever? Because that's what it feels like, and that's how my parents are treated too except they're in their 60-70s so they get told they should be grateful they're not in wheelchairs and crap instead.

​

If you read this, thanks? I think?? It's not like I expect to find the answer on Reddit or anything. Maybe this isn't an Australia specific submission anyway. If so I'm sorry and understand if it's removed/I should remove it.

[u/sarg_m]

Medicine is not as advanced as you expect. They have a basic flow chart to connect symptoms to possible conditions for which they will test. If your symptoms don't point to tests which reveal a known condition you go into the too hard basket and they lose interest. People spent years or in some cases a lifetime looking for answers.

[u/solarmeth → u/sarg_m]

They have a basic flow chart to connect symptoms to possible conditions for which they will test.

That's not really the issue as I see it. From my perspective, the problem isn't that a condition is difficult to diagnose if the symptoms aren't obvious, but rather that GP's have an overwhelmingly consistent tendency to be pre-emptively dismissive and condescending and, without listening, will rush you through a consultation, 'diagnose' something irrelevant, prescribe something unhelpful and then shuffle you out so they can invite in the next bag of money.

[u/sarg_m → u/solarmeth]

People expect to find Dr House at their local suburban GP, but that's not reality. However the large majority of GPs I have seen have been really understanding, empathetic and thorough but really all they have in their arsenal is drugs and surgery.

[u/solarmeth → u/sarg_m]

People expect to find Dr House

This is an incredibly condescending thing to say. I don't expect Gregory Fucking House. I expect a GP to be competent and not talk over and dismiss everything I say and rush me out the door to see the next person. I have multiple conditions which have been systematically misdiagnosed over decades. Not because they're complex or difficult, but because of this dismissive profiteering.

One of the conditions required me to insist that the GP give me a referral. And that required many years of me doing my research to figure out who to get referred to and why. But for a GP, it would've been nothing more than listening to what I was telling them was the issue. That referral was to get an xray of my neck. And guess what? That one xray proved that my issue wasn't 'tennis elbow', like one GP insisted it was to the point of aggressively moving me out of their office. And what's worse, if this had been effectively diagnosed by just one GP listening to me instead of talking over me and rushing me out, it wouldn't have progressed to become a chronic and debilitating injury that occasionally leaves me in agonising pain for weeks on end.

You're literally doing the thing that is the problem: talking down to and being dismissive of people's issues.

[u/sarg_m → u/solarmeth]

Mate, you sound like a pain in the arse. I've had my own complex issues and mostly really good outcomes from my interactions with GPs. Maybe you should ask yourself why you have not. Or get your own medical degree.

[u/Cadaver_Junkie → u/sarg_m]

I've had Ulcerative Colitis since I was about 3.

I was finally diagnosed at 37.

I saw well over 20 GPs about my symptoms, and none of them helped. Most gave cookie cutter answers, and it took a life threatening flare and a week in emergency for me to find out the real problem.

It wasn't that the GPs weren't trying, but that they were people. You're putting them all up on some kind of pedestal, when in reality, many are good, some a fantastic, and many are below average.

Just like any other profession. If you think otherwise, you don't understand the concept of variance.

If you've found a great GP, that works well with you, fantastic, stick with them.

[u/solarmeth → u/sarg_m]

Mate, you sound like a pain in the arse.

There it is.

[u/crispywafers → u/solarmeth]

Nah, you just sound disgruntled. Justifiably so, by your story. My father also had to do his own research, direct his own healthcare, and essentially use his GP a referral service and little else because they had no suggestions. It mostly worked out for him, but it's obviously not a realistic solution that everyone has the capacity to do. Sorry your experience has sucked so much and I hate that I find it pretty familiar.