The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
'Our health care is far from perfect,' long-time resident Harry Hobbs wrote in a letter to the editor that appeared in these pages on Wednesday. But Hobbs said he resented CBC's recent report on the Flin Flon General Hospital, calling it 'one-sided' and lacking insight from 'people who have also had good and caring doctors, nurses and health care assistants.' A number of people shared Hobbs' complaint, though in fairness to CBC its three-part report did give Northern Health Region CEO Helga Bryant the chance to present the NHR's side of the story. Still, the report is a perfect example of how the news media can distort our perceptions, even if that's not the intent. The news media is the lens through which we view aspects of the world that we have not personally experienced. Almost no one knows anything about what happens in the House of Commons, for instance, outside of what journalists tell us. So when a major media outlet turns its attention to an institution with which most of us have no ongoing personal involvement _ the Flin Flon General Hospital _ its words matter. A lot. My guess is that CBC and its I-Team investigators viewed this as an opportunity to conduct some advocacy journalism _ expose everything that's said to be wrong with the hospital so that it will have no choice but to improve. Of course if improvements are implemented as a result of the report, we all benefit. But it's also possible we will suffer. Let's hope not, but new doctors may now think twice about coming to our hospital as a result of this type of news coverage. Throughout years of reporting on local health care concerns myself, I have seen how emotional of an issue this is in our community. I have had critics of our health care accuse me of going easy on a system they view as dysfunctional. To them, The Reminder's coverage hasn't made things look as bad as they really are. I have also had supporters of the health care system say I offer too much ink to the critics. To them, The Reminder's coverage hasn't made things look as good as they really are. My own view of our health care system is this: some people think it's working well, some people think it's not working well and some people (probably most) fall somewhere in between. Personally, I am one of the in-betweeners. In terms of concerns, I would like to see more specialized care and a broader range of doctors so that patients can do more 'shopping around' for a physician that suits them. I also believe that patients who have been misdiagnosed deserve answers as to what went wrong, and that if any one doctor seems to be misdiagnosing multiple patients, he or she should be investigated. But some of the issues that have been getting a lot of attention, while interesting to me journalistically, are pretty inconsequential to me personally. I'm not particularly jealous or upset by how much our physicians earn. And if someone at the hospital has a difference with their boss, I'm not sure it's an issue of earth-shattering significance unless, of course, patient care is being compromised. In my own limited experiences with the hospital, I have no big complaints. I have had friends undergo surgery, cortisone shots and ER visits, and the only concern I heard from them is that one of the doctors could have been friendlier. I know that's not everyone's experience. And perhaps if it had been my loved one who was severely misdiagnosed at the hospital, I might have trouble being so personally unbiased about the system. But like I said, I don't believe our health care system is perfect. I don't believe any health care system is perfect. Medicine itself, workplaces full of human beings _ these can never be anywhere near perfect. What I don't know is whether our system is more imperfect than anyone else's. That's something the CBC report failed to address _ and which none of us really knows. Local Angle runs Fridays.
