In another era, I’m telling you about a time that people under 20 can’t know, I would have been buried under a mountain of paper. But as The Press and its readers are firmly rooted in the 21ste century, it is rather under the e-mails that I collapse.
Not the slightest fax to react to my column on the setbacks of a citizen of the South Shore, Philippe Georgiades, who told me on Thursday that he had been forced to fax a request to a medical specialist at the UPS counter in his city.
I dared to believe in an isolated blunder. A shower of testimonials, each more distressing than the next, convinced me of the contrary. No, Philippe Georgiades is not alone running through the forms from one floor to another in the vain hope of getting his hands on the elusive A38 pass…
With him, in the house that drives you crazy, there is Eddy Addison: “The CHUM asked me to go and receive an injection at the CLSC in my region. So I called the CLSC to make an appointment. Impossible, I was told! Had to call [Guichet d’accès à la première ligne (GAP)]. The GAP therefore called me back to tell me that I had to tell my pharmacy to fax them the prescription so that they could then make an appointment for me with the CLSC in my area. […] As they say, why make it simple when you can make it complicated? »
There is this former employee of a Montreal hospital: “As a catering manager (for visitors and employees), I had a fax machine in my office. At the hospital, I received faxes related to medical records every week! (It’s so easy to get a number wrong.) I was discouraged each time and since I didn’t have the skill to assess the importance of it, I spent a lot of time making sure the fax goes to the right recipient. Very often I had to contact the sender to identify where it should have been sent. Sometimes I would take a short walk to make sure it looked good. I told myself that if I had been the patient, it would have made my life easier… maybe it would have even saved it? »
There is Louis Martin: “November 14, 2022, I send a fax from my pharmacy with the number already used to my specialist, asking him to reduce the dose of a drug. 1er December, I call the department to find out where my fax has gone. The next day, I am called back to tell me that my fax has arrived at 1er hospital floor rather than 6e and you have to send it to another number. Pause. So my fax languished for more than two weeks at 1er floor without anyone on that floor conveying or notifying the 6e floor that there was a fax for them…”
There is Jean-Philippe Brabant, who uses a wheelchair and receives home care. “I must enter the number of hours of home service I received from employees who came to my home. This document will be used to generate their pay. Then I need to send this to the payroll processing center. There are only two ways, either by traditional post or by fax. You will understand that going to the community mailbox in a wheelchair in the middle of winter is quite an adventure, so I only have fax as an option. But of course, I don’t have a fax at home, it’s not 1980 anymore. The CLSC employees recommended that I use free online fax services. However, being a programmer myself, a free web service is a red flag in terms of security. Probably these services read the contents of faxes in order to generate revenue. Since the documents are used to generate the payroll, they contain a lot of highly sensitive information such as name, date of birth, address and sometimes the SIN and a specimen check of the employees…”
There is Sylvain Robidoux: “I am currently awaiting authorization for a specific drug from my insurer and guess what? The insurance company did not receive the fax from my doctor, who filled out the necessary form two weeks ago. »
During the whole process of treating my disease, I had to face this situation dozens of times… To the point where I already mentioned to my insurer that it is not the cancer that will kill me, but the system that surrounds all the paperwork that falls on our backs!
Sylvain Robidoux
There is Michel Frison: “A GP asked [à notre grand-mère de 98 ans] to fax your request to Sacré-Cœur to see a specialist. Our grandmother asked us what a fax was! Finally, we looked around the neighborhood to see who had a fax machine and luckily a nice shopkeeper still had one. »
There is Richard Péloquin: “What is a fax? This is what the young cashier at my pharmacy asked me when I asked her about sending a request to my hospital. I had to spell the word for him. She still didn’t understand…”
There are plenty of others, patients, general practitioners, specialists, lost in the mazes of the house which drives you crazy. The fax is probably just a symptom, as D writesr Alain Vadeboncœur in News. Still. It is high time to treat once and for all the sick, this health network endowed with hermetic communication systems worthy of the Stone Age.