Two nights ago, I was in such pain that I thought no law should prevent a doctor from prescribing medication that soothes a patient’s pain. I phoned a friend and my nephew to tell them that I may have to enter a hospital. However, after I took a muscle relaxant, prescribed, and several tablets of Tylenol the pain was more tolerable. However, this morning, the pain had returned.
I can understand that a government would “crackdown” on opioids. There are dealers making a fortune selling opioids and young people who use opioids for recreational purposes. In fact, it kills. But it is difficult to accept that the sick should pay the price for the criminal and abusive use of opioids. There are times when a painkiller is necessary, just as there are times when a doctor must be at liberty to perform an abortion.
The last time I was in the Emergency Room, the doctor spoke to me aggressively. I left with a prescription for medication that could not alleviate the pain I experienced. So it could be that doctors are afraid. Given the fight against opioids, they hesitate to prescribe them. However, having to suffer needlessly at this stage in my life seems an offence. In the past, I have taken codeine to relieve the pain of migraines, but codeine will no longer be prescribed to me by my new doctor. He had negative comments about codeine. A few days from now, I will know whether my illness is a degenerative musculoskeletal condition, which it may not be. But if it is, and the pain is not constant, i. e. every minute of the day, I will not qualify for genuine relief.
Moreover, a good relationship with my new doctor has now been jeopardized. How can I trust a man who has already shown indifference to the pain I was experiencing. He told me to buy Voltaren and to pay for the services of a physiotherapist. He claimed that my neck was the problem. However, the X-rays did not show damage to the neck. In Magog, I was prescribed Prednizone (cortisone) and morphine, a short course of each medication. That kind of prescription could not be renewed, but it had helped me. Besides, the problem was first diagnosed as pericarditis.
I hope that my next test does not reveal a degenerative musculoskeletal disease. What would I do?
Grief has affected my health adversely, … I was talked into selling my home in Antigonish, and my family bought an apartment in Sherbrooke. I had seen the apartment. It was large, and it had an office. They refused to have the condo inspected, which is a mistake, and, although I hired a notary fearing my father may not read the documentation about the building, I learned, too late, that the apartment could not be sold to a person who needed a mortgage. I could not sell that apartment. So, I lost my equity. Nearly all that my career had earned me. Besides, I was selling the Antigonish house on the condition that my application for disability benefits was approved. I was told that it had been approved, but it hadn’t. The person who bought my house died, but I did not have the money to repurchase it. Colleagues had already fooled me into relinquishing my tenure, but I would have liked to return to my home. What had I done?
It is all incredible. I often wonder why I have retained a youthful face and figure. It seems a lie.
It appears I suffer from a musculoskeletal condition. The pain is genuine, but which condition is it?
My smartphone just informed me that a curfew is effective now. No one can leave home between 10 in the evening and 5 in the morning, which means that New Year’s celebrations had to be cancelled.
But let us hope for the best. Covid hasn’t ended, but a new year brings promise. Life starts anew. It has always done so.
Love to everyoneand a Happy New Year 💕
Claude Debussy La Fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair)
Winter has come. There is very little snow, but it is cold. Storms devastated many American states. I grieve for those who have lost a loved one and their home.
Medical Tests
I went for tests on the 14th and 16th of December. On the 14th, I was in considerable pain when I arrived for the tests. So, afterward, I returned to the Emergency Room. The doctor who looked after me told me, somewhat aggressively, to dismiss all previous diagnoses. She also stated that we did not have a firm diagnosis concerning my illness and that she would not prescribe medication. If my memory serves me well, my doctor also said that she was a young emergency-room doctor and that she did not have the authority to prescribe medication. Other emergency-room doctors had prescribed medication.
But we did have a diagnosis. I had been diagnosed with pericarditis, inflamed muscles in the rib cage, a deteriorating left shoulder, and arm, etc. In rare cases, the vaccine can cause pericarditis and/or myocarditis. However, Covid-19 is the greater evil. Therefore, one gets vaccinated.
However, after my heart was examined and tests performed, this doctor wanted to send me home unmedicated. Pain may sound the alarm, but it can grow into a medical issue. I told her that I could not tolerate this level of pain and needed medical help. I could not understand what had happened to me.
Another doctor walked by and asked, jokingly, if I was the lady with the sick shoulder. How did he know? I said that I was indeed the lady with the sick shoulder and told him that the pain had become so intense that it was crippling. Something had to be done. He said he would look at the papers. In the end, the doctors, or my doctor, phoned the pharmacy to prescribe barely effective painkillers, but painkillers.
However, I still wonder why I was not prescribed effective medication. I am small, but I am not a child. The doctor also said that the pain I felt was not always constant. It could stop for a few minutes and then recur. Therefore, it did not warrant medication. My friend Paulina arrived, caught a few words, and said that for the last few weeks, I had not been the same. I was not at my computer.
One is asked to provide a number from one to ten to describe the intensity of one’s pain, but that is very difficult. I was not being burned alive, yet I was experiencing considerable pain.
Reality has changed, but has it changed to the point where taking a few tablets of codeine is considered harmful? Moreover, although Covid-19 has exerted an influence on everyone, the medical use of morphine for a few days is still acceptable. In rare cases, Covid-19 vaccines can trigger pericarditis and myocarditis which in no way lessens the benefits of the vaccine. This may have led my doctor to a degree of analysis paralysis.
This little post is not under “Medicine in Quebec.” But I am worried. Will I be left to age and die in pain as though I were the epitome of nothingness? It comforts me to think that if there is a God, and there is a God, God knows me.
—ooo—
This is the month of Christmas and the day of the longest night. The Winter solstice, is very near in this hemisphere.
We are going back to Félix Loriaux. Would that I could find more pictures of his Buffon pour les enfants, One site does show illustrations of the Buffon pour les enfants, but are short of images. So, I may have to order the relevant books, if they are affordable. As you know. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a naturalist. The animals he discussed were animals, not animals in disguise.
Below the video, you will find a page from an illuminated manuscript belonging to madame Marie Hainaut (1285). I love this naive depiction of an angel telling the shepherds that Christ is born.
A picture on our video features anthropomorphic humans, humans disguised as animals.
As for the related articles, they are the story of a Czech gentleman, John Amos Comenius, who may well have been the first educator to state that illustrations helped students to remember. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Livre d’images de madame Marie Hainaut, vers 1285-1290 Paris, BnF, Naf 16251, fol. 22v. La naissance du Christ est annoncée aux bergers, aux humbles. “Et voici qu’un ange du seigneur leur apparut [.]. Ils furent saisis d’une grande frayeur. Mais l’ange leur dit : “Ne craignez point, car je vous annonce une bonne nouvelle [.]” (The Birth of Christ announced to the Shepherds) (Photo credit: the National Library of France [BnF])
The choice of a President of the United States may be based on such issues as abortion.
The health of a woman should not be used to sway voters. Besides, women are being insulted. They are full-fledged citizens of the United States and they know right from wrong. They are responsible individuals and cannot be looked upon as frivolous.
Abortion and birth control are not a clear “yes” or “no” issue. A person may be against abortions, but find herself needing an abortion. There are women whose health and life preclude a pregnancy, and women who are taking medications that may endanger the health and life of a fetus. The fate of these woman and the fetus is not for the White House to determine. Nor should Washington interfere with a doctor’s duties towards his patients.
Millions of women would like to have a child, but cannot conceive. As for women who are fertile, they have a right to control their fertility.
Our society has given abortions a bad name, which is very wrong. Our society has also been intolerant of sexual orientation. As long as no one is forced into sexual intercourse, and children are protected, sexual intercourse is a gift to mankind. It must be consensual, even in marriage, but it is pleasurable, comforting, and it allows a woman to bear and give birth to little ones.
It is very painful not to have the child one thought one would have. Childless persons do not have a family.
Canada has decriminalized abortions. Women were resorting to the use of coat hangers or went to charlatans who could cause their death and whose fees were unacceptably high. They had turned the government’s failure to protect its citizens into a lucrative but secret industry. That is unacceptable. Women also committed suicide.
The time has come for governments around the world to look upon women as responsible citizens who would not resort to frivolous abortions. It is a matter of education. At this rather late day, women are on the same footing as men.
President Trump and Moral Issues
President Donald Trump downplayed the novel coronavirus. He had to listen to Dr. Fauci and other experts in epidemiology. He didn’t. He also kicked the WHO, the World Health Organization, out of the United States. I hope he will pick up hospital bills as well as funeral costs. He was not there when he should have been and he let thousands of Americans be infected .
In short, politicians who use their stand on abortion are seeking votes and, in the case of Mr. Trump, this stand does not represent his genuine feelings. Politicians are merely using women. They are not qualified to decide whether a pregnancy is physically and emotionally safe or unsafe. Most are not medical doctors and they are not one’s personal medical doctors. Besides, if one candidate to the presidency uses his stand on abortion to gain a vote, first, he may be lying and, second, he may be forcing an opponent to take a stand on a medical and very private issue.
I lost fourteen brothers and sisters to a congenital blood disease. My mother was pregnant knowing the child she bore was unlikely to survive. Religion was a factor. I have always wondered whether giving birth to children who would die was morally right or wrong.
When one of his sons died, I saw my father collapse. His friends, both medical doctors and dear friends, led him out of the room. He never recovered.
Composite Elephant, 17th century, India (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)
It’s a day at a time.
I have been working on Despotism. Peter I (the Great & 6 ft 8 [203 cm]) wanted access to seas. He defeated the Swedish Empire and founded the Russian Empire in 1721.
—ooo—
In August 2017, my brother Jean-Pierre, nephew François and his wife, Josée, helped me move from a large apartment to a smaller one. I had too many books. After transporting something to my locker, my brother said: “I won’t sleep for three nights.”
What had I heard? I told François that his father could not help me anymore. He needed to be treated.
In the meantime, my brother’s urine grew into a mixture of urine, blood and an unidentified white substance. He saw a doctor who prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics! We are now in the spring of 2018 (not August 2017). My brother saw a second doctor who diagnosed cancer.
I pity men who are treated for a cancer of the bladder. Jean-Pierre’s urethra was so damaged that he nearly went into shock and died, when a tube was inserted through the urethra, to fill his bladder with a chemical and then remove the chemical. The pain was excruciating, and they said they could not give him an anaesthetic or freeze the affected area. I nearly jumped out of my skin. More of these treatments had been scheduled.
Between treatments, my brother was not prescribed a painkiller. I tried to help by offering a few tablets of codeine that had been prescribed for stubborn migraines several years ago. I doubted these tablets could still relieve pain. Besides, medication should be prescribed by one’s own doctor. My brother did not take the codeine.
A few years ago, Mr MacEachen invited me to share a lunch with him in Ottawa. We were joined by Pearl, Mr MacEachen’s finest secretary, and Craig, who helped Mr MacEachen. Allan J. asked me about medicine in Quebec. I told him that I had not been able to find a doctor, so a secretary at the Medical School had referred me to an intern and that I now had a good doctor. He worked in a public clinic supervising interns.
In other words, I told Mr MacEachen that, in Quebec, one could not find a doctor. He answered that the system would break down. He was right. Allan J. MacEachean built Canada’s first social programmes, under Lester B. Pearson, and had studied economics in an ivy league university.
I have since learned that those who despair seek the services of a private doctor, which is extremely expensive. These doctors have rich patients and treat celebrities.
Painting attributed to Bichitr (active ca. 1610–60)
The Syndicates
the priest-ridden province
the syndicate-ridden province
It appears that, in Quebec, doctors are protected by powerful syndicates. Before the Révolution tranquille, Quebec was considered a ‘priest-ridden’ province. Many priests had been sent to the Seminary in Quebec City because England did not know what to do with the French priests who had emigrated to Britain during the French Revolution. They then remembered that they had a French, and Catholic, colony. A second wave of priests and religious orders emigrated to Quebec in 1905, when the French passed the Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State: la loi du 9 décembre 1905.
Quebec may have been a priest-ridden province but it would appear it is now run by syndicates. (See Révolution tranquille, Wiki2.org.) A cousin of mine could not believe that my pension did not allow me to spend part of the winter, if not all, in Florida. “You didn’t have a very good syndicate,” she said. Truth be told, we did not have a syndicate.
An Emergency
I just read my email. A friend who lives close to Sherbrooke and suffers from Ménière’s disease (vertigo and deafness) wrote to say that he had been on a waiting-list to see his specialist for two years. He asked that his appointment be moved up but he was told to wait. My hearing is normal, so it’s easy for me to make phone calls. I called.
Conclusion
If a province chases away good taxpayers, a welfare state is a white elephant, particularly when doctors, university teachers, lawyers, and everyone else, are syndicated. I dare not say more.
We lowly creatures…
Love to everyone 💕
Camille Saint-Saëns “The Elephant” from the Carnival of Animals,
played by Zoltán Bíró
Budapest, 29 November 2008
« L’art enseigne, renseigne. Il révèle l’âme. Nul doute qu’il a le pouvoir d’ordonner en un cosmos le chaos de l’inconscient. D’un désordre, d’une souffrance et d’un déséquilibre, il conduit à la stabilité, à l’harmonie et à la joie. »
(Ozias Leduc, tiré d’une lettre à Paul-Émile Borduas, 1943)
[Art teaches, informs. It reveals the soul. It has, no doubt, the power of ordering into a cosmos the chaos of the unconscious. From disorder, pain, and imbalance, it leads to stability, harmony and joy.]
In a very recent post, entitled Comforting Thoughts, I inserted a link to an article published by the BBC. I am quoting, first, a paragraph from my post, and, second, the article published by the BBC. Nurses are overworked and there are families who do not, or cannot, for lack of money, or time, participate in the care given a mother, a father, a brother, and other members of their family.
“[w]e stayed with him [my brother] the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.”
Researching Health Care, I found this article published by the BBC (UK). Home news from abroad. Doctors in Quebec earn approximately three times, perhaps more, the salary of a University teacher in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and they enjoy a lifestyle most of us can only dream of.
When I moved to Quebec, I could not find a doctor. I phoned and phoned and phoned. I was put on several waiting lists, to no avail. The doctors whose office I called always had “more patients than he or she could handle.” I ended up contacting the University of Sherbrooke’s Medical School. A secretary made an appointment for me at a CLSC, Fr / En, a public clinic. I would see an intern. No problem! My intern was a fine doctor and he was supervised. When his internship was over, he asked his supervisor to take me as a patient.
And I am not the only person facing this problem. Last week, I met a young woman who had waited 4 years to find a doctor and was sitting in the waiting area of a public clinic, or a CLSC(Centre local de services communautaires). She would see an intern. I reassured her. She had come to the right place.
An Aristocracy
As I wrote in my post, doctors were becoming an aristocracy. They work from 9 to 5 (9 to 17 hours) or less, and they may be on call. Some doctors ask that medicine not be discussed in their presence outside working hours: it would be too stressful. They need their rest and a private life.
Of course, but should people go untreated and nurses be so burdened that patient care is neglected. Nurses are leaving their chosen profession.
“Doctors from the Canadian province of Quebec have shocked the world by turning down a pay rise.
Why would anyone turn down a pay rise?
For doctors from Quebec, the answer is simple: patient care.
An eight-year, retroactive deal struck in February would see about 20,000 of the province’s medical specialists and general practitioners receive an annual salary increase ranging from about 1.4% to 1.8% each year [bold characters are mine].
That would mean that the province, which subsidises the bulk of doctors’ salaries, would be on the hook for an additional C$1.5bn ($1.2bn, £840m) by 2023.
It is a fair agreement, according to the unions representing Quebec doctors, who pushed for the deal with the province.
But not all physicians are on board – more than 700 physicians, both GPs and specialists, have signed a petition from Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public [Quebec Doctors for the Public System] saying they do not want the rise, and they would rather have the extra money go to patient care and services. The group represents doctors in the province who strongly support public access to healthcare.
Meanwhile, the province’s nurses are fighting for better working conditions and salaries. A picture of a bleary-eyed nurse posted on Facebook went viral and was shared more than 50,000 times in January.
“I’m so stressed that I have back troubles, enough to keep me from sleeping. I don’t want to go to work because I dread the workload that awaits me,” wrote Émilie Ricard, who said she alone was in charge of caring for 70 patients in one shift. “I come home and I’m crying with fatigue.”
We, Quebec doctors…
“We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy [of] the people of Quebec,” read the letter.
This sentiment has struck a chord with people across Canada and abroad.
At home, the Quebec doctors have been praised by officials, but some of their colleagues have kept mum.
“If they feel they are overpaid, they can leave the money on the table. I guarantee you I can make good use of it,” said the province’s health minister Gaétan Barrette.
Quebec’s physician unions have not commented publicly about the call for less than the agreed-upon pay rise.
In Canada, healthcare is public and run by the provinces, not the federal government, which means that salaries can vary quite a lot from province to province.
The average salary for a physician nationwide was $339,000, according to the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
In Ontario, Canada’s largest province by population, the average specialist made C$403,500; in Quebec, they made C$367,000.
Conversely, family physicians in Quebec made C$255,000, while in Ontario they made C$311,000.
The Quebec doctors’ rebuff of a pay rise has put them at odds with many of their colleagues in other provinces.
The Ontario Medical Association has been fighting for higher wages with the province for years.
The province has cut fees twice in three years and the association still has not negotiated a contract with the province.”
End of quotation.
Conclusion
Why should medical doctors be paid three to four times a university teacher’s salary. I suspect that many doctors, those who are doctors mostly for the money, were disgruntled when the Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public refused a rise in salary. They may have been motivated to vote Dr Couillard out of office. As for nurses who had to look after 70 patients, they may have believed that the premier was at fault. Not quite!
In Quebec, future doctors enter Medical School after grade 11 + 2 years in a CEGEP (General and Vocational College). They can start earning money earlier than doctors living elsewhere. They are also protected by powerful syndicates. But so few doctors are available that when one retires, his or her patients are devastated. Yet, between 2005-15, a physician’s salary doubled while nurses looked after 70 patients.
What about the wages of an overworked nurse, old-age pensions, and disability benefits? A nurse’s salary does not double in ten years. As for disability benefits, they never go up. The amount is 60% of the salary one earns the last year one works. After 15 years, one’s financial security is endangered. At age 73, now 74, I had to take a mortgage to buy a one-bedroom apartment. But I’m not complaining.
—ooo—
I thank the doctors, the Médecins québécois pour le Régime public, who turned down a rise in salary and I am glad that the working conditions of nurses have been brought to the attention of the world.
Taking care of Jean-Pierre was a full-time occupation, and the nurse assigned to him was looking after other patients. She was a fine nurse, but she was probably relieved to see that members of Jean-Pierre’s family were taking care of him. She did not want to neglect a patient. She told us about the little beds available to family and friends who preferred not to leave a dying relative. We were happy to learn that there were little beds for the family.
Jean-Pierre died graciously. He thanked the staff for the fine care he had received. He thanked the priest who administered the Last Rites and he told all of us that he had simply reached his expiry date: sa date d’expiration, which is a date all of us have to face.
Micheline's Blog 
