Tell Me Your Story

Since starting my blog about my futile quest for competent medical care in the U.S., dozens of readers have contacted me with similar stories of their own. The stories are heartfelt, sincere and alarming. It’s as if the chronically ill are living in a silent, forgotten underworld that no one else cares about or can relate to.

I truly believe there is hope in numbers. Knowing that there are others out there who’ve experienced the same sort of mistreatment or worse may bring courage to others as it has to me.

Ultimately, I’d like to assemble a grassroots movement to bring focus to our plight. After all, why should the government have to pay for doctors’ mistakes and negligence in the form of disability and Medicare payments and lost tax revenues? Why isn’t there a Congressional investigation into doctors’ practices and how they treat patients? Why isn’t the government recouping its costs from doctors found to be negligent? Why aren’t any health care reform measures focused on changing the internist-specialist-referral system that places patients in a fruitless endless loop of revolving doors?

Tell me your story here in the comments section. Then, if you are so inclined, send your story to your Congressional representatives, whose contact information is available at “Contacting the Congress” www.visi.com/juan/congress on the web. If you do write your legislators, tell them you are a constituent and what type of legislation or action you’d like them to take upfront. (For example, you could say you’d like to see a motion calling for the establishment of a Blue Ribbon Commission to investigate outpatient doctor practices based upon your experiences of simply being shuffled from one doctor to the next with no hope of being properly diagnosed or treated.)

If President Barack Obama is sincere in his pledge to change status quo, a sure way to prove it is to start investigating the industries the administration has taken a “hands off” policy toward in the past — particularly if enough people call for such action. Your story can fuel the fire toward progress and change.

~ by doctorblue on February 9, 2009.