A Clinic Peek

Dear Diary,

Went to a clinic this morning... the clinic assistant greeted me by telling me that the doctor would be a young locum female doctor as the resident physician is on leave. I shrugged my shoulders, saying that I was fine with that. She continued to repeat that refrain to just about every patient who came in and sounded almost as if she was persuading them not to consult this doctor but to come back again on Thursday when the resident doctor will return. Hmmm... are locum doctors paid by the hour or by the number of patients they see? However, most patients were fine with seeing a locum.

I sat at the seats, waiting and observing. A couple of patients popped by, asking for medications which they were running out of. One elderly lady told the clinic assistant that she has only one tablet left of her anti-hypertensive medicine, while another middle-age lady wanted yet another anti-viral cream for her herpes labialis. Guess what... our all-powerful clinic assistant dispensed the “repeat prescription” without consulting the doctor. They are “pharmacists” too, by the way. A lady came up asking for an analgesic transdermal patch for aching shoulders which she apparently used before and was effective. She didn’t know the name of that product. One of the clinic assistants offered her a ketoprofen transdermal patch as a sample to her. After the lady uncovered the patch the packaging, she started saying that it looked exactly like the patch she was looking for... errr... okay... don’t all patches look a bit brownish and fabric in nature? The clinic assistant continued to just sell her a packet of 6 sheets of Ketotop. Voila! Our clinic assistants can sell pharmacy-only medications without supervision too!

Consulted that doctor who was probably my age and I must say that she was quite meticulous. She told me she would prescribe me some antibiotics for my viral infection. Hmmm... why always antibiotics? Forgivable because she is a girl, haha... joking! =P Anyway, I asked for some serratiopeptidase too. It always works well for my pharyngitis. Then it was back at the front of the clinic, waiting to collect my medicine. It was getting really crowded and so I stood just beside the entrance. A young man came in and asked for the doctor. As always, the clinic assistant told the man to go to the polyclinic nearby as the resident doctor was not in... Was he even looking for that resident doctor anyway? I did not really take much notice until....
The man was apparently very pissed. He strode away, stomping his feet and attempted to push open the clinic glass swing door. It was a crunching, loud and embarrassing halt as the swing door opens inwards only! I thought he knocked his head into it... That fella was so annoyed that he pulled open the door real hard the second time and hurled it towards me! Instinctively like Ip Man (yeah, right...), I reacted by reaching out my right knee and the left heel of my palm. The door smashed against my palm heel and my knee with a loud impact sound (luckily not into my face) like someone striking the Wing Chun dragon pole form. The people in the clinic were stunned into silence. The man looked back with smouldering fury and left.

I wasn’t pleased but quickly noticed drops of blood on the floor which dripped from that man. Oh well, he was probably very upset to be turned away by the clinic assistant to see a doctor for a bleeding wound! The clinic assistants apologised to me but I shrugged it off. Got my bag of medicine and left. Quite surprised to see an entire box of Difflam (benzydamine) raspberry lozenges in it. My company is probably just going to pay this clinic $20 - $25 for this consultation but I got a whole box of difflam lozenges (which I think it cost about $12.90 at the pharmacy two years ago, $15 now?), 1 strip of serratiopeptidase (maybe about $1.50 now?), 15 Amoxicyllin capsules (500mg tds x 5/7) and a rather big bottle of fedac syrup ($5?). Those medications would have cost me almost $20 at the pharmacy.

Frankly, if community pharmacies continue to sell medications at ridiculous prices, most people (even pharmacists like myself) would rather visit a clinic which I do not have to pay a cent for the medicine because of company’s medical benefits. Sell them cheaper and people may consider self-medicating.

That’s all folks. Gotta rest now... ciao! ;-)

God Bless,

Andrew