Dear Dirty America

MICHAEL J BLAIR
Perthshire, Scotland

Are we better off without doctors? That’s a question I never expected to have to ask.

But since we have had to endure the insanity of the last six months, I’m beginning to wonder if we relied too much on doctors and the drugs they dispense.

Admittedly, getting an appointment has been made more difficult over the last few years, but we generally managed to be seen before we had a heart attack due to the stress involved and passed away.

Now, that particular stress has been taken away because our GP service seems to have stopped working with people in a face to face capacity.

Very few people want to be seen via video link, especially older people who aren’t familiar with the technology.

So more people have just stopped bothering with their GP, and carry on living with their aches and pains.

I often wonder if we are being experimented upon by pharmaceutical companies in league with doctors, when we are prescribed some new medication.

How many people even read the leaflet about the drug and all of the side effects? I certainly don’t.

My reasoning for this is, if I read all about what might happen, I would probably spend every waking hour thinking every twinge or itch was due to the side effects.

If something terrible happened, like a leg falling off, I would feel my fears were justified, but I don’t imagine that is likely to happen.

In recent times, an appointment with a doctor became a race to give the information about our health to the usually inattentive doctor, before he or she began looking above our heads, to the clock on the wall. This again added stress to the whole thing.

Now, you may be like me and have more than one ailment to discuss with your GP. This used to elicit eye rolling and an “if you must”, response.

This stopped happening when doctors refused to deal with anything other than the original issue at the appointment, telling us we would have to make a separate appointment.

Now these extra stresses have been removed by not getting appointments at all, we can just get up in the morning and get on with living.

I know many people need to see a doctor due to serious symptoms and to do so they will have to jump through many hoops, but this has to be endured if one is really concerned. To those who get through the maze of rules to actually sit down in front of a GP, I wish them well.

In my opinion, a large number of doctors don’t even enjoy their work, and that shows in the attitude of them even in a telephone appointment, which isn’t a new thing. They were starting to do this before coronavirus danced into our lives.

Were we being weened off the habit of seeing a doctor over the last few years? And if so, why?

If this was about trying to keep the public less well, then I think it has backfired. Once a few levels of stress are removed from us, the better we are physically and emotionally.

We can concentrate on eating a better diet and getting more exercise to keep us healthy.

This way more doctors will have more time to spend with their money. Oops, families.

Meanwhile, hospitals seem to be very quiet, considering how many people should have been queueing up after the long lay off, but I don’t think many people really want to go anywhere near a hospital if they can avoid it.

One never knows if their notes will have “Do Not Resuscitate” written on them.

[Header photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels]