Tele Nursing...to be or not to be?

Winter weather always seems to have the ability to get people down...especially during that home stretch between winter and spring. February being the worst...Suicide Watch Month is what the nurses at Telehealth Ontario call it (unofficially). In fact, they go out of their way to hold meetings over the subject...preparing the receptionists that get front line calls with emergency procedure. We should get a ribbon, declare a holiday and have a big walk-a-thon especially since I'm sure most people can identify with feeling down during this time frame. The nurses in some respect at Telehealth do help however lets take a look at what nursing at Telehealth Ontario is...

In a province where access to doctors is scarce and emergency rooms are stacked disgustingly high as a result we have those wonderful nurses to answer questions and provide some basic instructions on general health care matters. What is it they do? They are trained to read from computer screens, told that should for any reason they deviate from what the computer screen is telling them it's their job. Sometimes personal experience...first hand in the field of health care could dictate something different entirely but are they allowed to say anything? Another note along this thought process is questions the computer hasn't been setup for. Advice is good if it's relevant and sometimes in a world where there is due process for everything people get nervous and seek that extra confirmation. Often these computers are not setup for the human responses that some people require and therefore come away from the experience disillusioned, feeling they've just wasted a chunk of time possibly put to better use reading a medical encyclopedia. And what of the job of Telehealth Nurse? Really?

I know lots of people literate enough to type a few key words into a computer database, ask some yes or no questions and then regurgitate the information that pops up. Unexperienced computer/internet people for major fortune 500 companies do it all the time. Most of the technicians you speak to had no idea where the start button was on Windows software when they started....three weeks of 'review' is supposed to give them the indepth knowledge they will need to know the ins and outs of computer and internet repair....with the help of a handy database. Isn't the government in a lot of respects just like one of those companies? The Canadian Government doles out a ton of cash...possibly millions of dollars in contract with third party companies to provide this service. Nurses make anywhere from 21 to 30 bucks an hour when they could pay the same Schmo Joe half the cash for the same results. Can you read and write and use common sense? Oh maybe get your first aid too. (75 bucks through Saint John's Ambulance)

Personally, I would rather pay those millions to attract General Practitioners for full time care of people...which is what we REALLY lack.

Just some food for thought.