CAUTION: If you have not read previous posts by Miserable Mabel, please be aware that she is a foul-mouthed so and so. She spouts off saying exactly what she thinks. Do not read if you are easily offended.
The following is a true experience. Stuff like this cannot be made up!
The names and or likeness of people described in her tirade may have been changed slightly to protect the innocent. This is her story of her recent visit to the County Clinic.
If you think America’s health system is wonderful, you are either
not sick, or sick in the head. Maybe I have my opinion because I don’t have the fancy health plan that the many of you do. I am on the county health plan. The M.I.A. Program. What does that mean? They say it means Medically Indigent Adult Program. I say it means the Medical Idiots Association.
The program sucks.
It might be better than nothing, but dogs get better care.
Just the other day, I had to go see the eye doctor because my eye was burning. It felt like I had the Clap in my eye. Not that I ever had the Clap. I have no way of knowing about the constant burning sensation that nothing will cool. Nor would I know about the constant dripping that should not be there. It is only what I would imagine it to feel like in some other part of my body, OK?
The adventure started in the building itself. It is an x-1950’s tuberculosis infirmary that was remodeled for the county health offices. I think the remodeling consisted of putting up one fucking wall, and a cripple ramp. I doubt the assholes even disinfected the place. You can probably get TB by just walking past the place. If you walk in, kiss your healthy lungs goodbye. With all the coughing, and hacking going on, those sickos waiting are probably bringing up enough clams to make clam chowder for the whole lot of them.
So, I sat in the waiting room. It was like sitting in the bus station in Tijuana. I kept smelling burritos and tacos. Bad ones. The place had a foul stench. No one spoke English. Not even the floozy who was there in her overly made up face and under clothed body. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to get some business, or needed to have her business seen to. Know what I mean?
I was surprised chickens weren’t running around free in the place.
The place was filled to standing room only capacity. I think the whole barrio was there. Maybe Mondays are a two for one day. Have your business checked, and one other body part for free or something. Or maybe Kidneys were on special that day. I only wanted my eyes checked. For Clap. Not that I ever had the Clap before, I remind you.
After two hours of waiting, they finally called me. "Numero 312, por favor". I had to go wait again in another room past the double doors of battleship grey. Unlike the swanky facility you go to that has better paint, I was led to an exam room where Juan and his family of 4 were also waiting. Not even a private room for any of us. I was told to sit.
Assholes. Didn’t they look in that room? There was no where to sit, but on the floor. There was a chair right outside that exam room. I sat there. Then I began to wonder. Will the Doctor see all of us together? In that one room? I was glad I didn’t need my feminine parts checked. I wondered if Juan was there for a prostate exam. Which of us would be first?
Then the bitch of a nurse came by to tell me I could not wait in the hallway. They don’t “like people in the hallway”. Oh...am I human? Why am I treated like a dog then? Then why don’t you put me in my own exam room, not with Juan and his clan! I ignored the bitch. I pretended not to understand Spanish. Which was easy to do.
At last the bitch…er…nurse…called me to the end of the hallway.
I was told to stand against the wall and wait for my turn while some Chinese lady tried to read the eye chart test. Imagine that! The poor thing couldn’t speak English. Her son had to translate. I doubt she could read the letters. They weren’t Chinese characters.
Her son stammered. “She no speak English. No can read chart. “
“Have her point left or right then.”
He translated.
His mom looked confused.
I think she failed the test and was considered blind. I hope she doesn’t drive, but her son looked too young to drive, so I would guess that she did.
My turn.
“Stand behind the line” the nurse barked,
Then she gave me a painted wooden spoon to place over my left eye.
“Read the chart” She commanded.
She would make a great dominatrix.
“E-P-T-H….”
“Good. Now do it with the other eye.” the Dominatrix commanded.
“Is this a trick? How fucking stupid do you think I am? You don’t think I can remember the 4 letters I just read? I might be old, but I am not fucking senile. I don’t have a vision problem, I have something in my eye that feels like the Clap.” I said.
She made me sit in another room. This time alone. Juan and his family was no where in sight. I guess she was scared that I might be the Typhoid Mary of Clap, and everyone would catch it. It is contagious, you know. Either that, or Juan was having his prostate seen to in private, afterall.
Finally the Doctor came in. He was wearing overalls. No shit. He looked like he just got done performing artificial insemination on some farm animal.
Or maybe he just got done with Juan.
He looked in my ears.
“Wait a goddamned minute!” I protested. “I came here for my eye. Can’t you see it oozing some slimy shit that should not be there?”
He gave me some eye drops. I went on my way. I am not sure the eye drops will work. The bottle looks like nasal spray to me. But I will try it.
This much I will tell you. Before you tell me that our health care is “the best in the world”, I will ask you for whom? If you are rich and can afford the best, perhaps. If you know how to get past all the gate keepers who approve the tests and drugs and treatment that you need, maybe it is "the best in the world". But if you are a poor average schmuck who is at the mercy of the system, you might as well be in Tijuana.
At least the Tequila is good there.
