During the Labour Day long weekend, I had occasion to visit the urgent health care facility in Cochrane.
On the Saturday of the weekend I went to the Calgary Highland Games in Springbank and tripped over a tent peg — full contact bagpipes as it were.
I crashed on my left side and tried to break my fall with my right hand.
Which is a long way of telling you I hurt my wrist. I couldn’t sleep Saturday night so I went to urgent health care Sunday morning.
I sat for three hours never seeing a doctor so I asked how much longer and was told maybe a couple of hours because there was only one doctor on duty and it was very busy.
So I went home and put ice on my wrist. In situations like this it’s easy to blame those that are doing the job and in this case it would be incorrect.
The folks at the urgent health care do a great job, but there’s a couple of factors that are out of their control that have great impact. Many patients use the facility as their family doctor.
Even to my untrained eye I could see a number of cases that were anything but urgent or an emergency.
Yet the staff has an obligation to care for them.
Another factor is many Calgary people use the Cochrane centre because it is much quicker service than city facilities. Again the staff has an obligation to care for them as well.
The bottom line is if you’re at the Cochrane urgent care facility and it seems to take forever, don’t get upset with the staff because there are factors they simply have to overcome and don’t control.
But don’t think I didn’t have the thought that perhaps if Alberta Health Services controlled expense accounts a tad better, maybe we could have another doctor at the Cochrane facility.
The wrist was x-rayed Tuesday, it was badly sprained but after 10 days in a splint we’re doing just fine thank you. One of the sad observations of hospital emergency rooms are the number of seniors, many of whom want nothing more than attention.
Sad but true.
What a great weekend at a great park and it’s on our doorstep.
It was at Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park and a tip of the hat to the many volunteers that made everything from symphony to marathons to baked beans happen.
There’s no doubt last weekend’s activities are just the start of great events at a great park. Speaking of great events, keep Oct. 26 open for the Cochrane Foundation’s annual fall dinner at GlenEagles.
The speaker is one of my favourite people, Barb Higgins.
