Working from home this afternoon on laptop remote-access.
6 y.o. T. was doing some homework after school. In between colouring shapes, he muses:
T: How do you work from home as a doctor?
Me: You really can’t. That’s why I don’t do it often. But at the moment, I’m electronically signing letters so they can go in the post.
T: Do you send lots of post from hospital?
Me: We actually do.
T: To patients?
Me: Sometimes to patients, also to their GPs, pharmacies, other hospitals…
T: But mostly to patients? It’s very important that you send them notes to tell them to feel better.
The child may be on to something: hospitals sending get well notes to their discharged patients?
Later, I was thinking about some Irish patients who repeat fears that doctors want patients to stay ill, fears usually imported from abroad about doctors doing unnecessary tests or prescribing unnecessary medications for profit. If we think it through: really just not the same potential for conflict of interest in public system. In short, our public health system is hardly looking for more business.
So, yes, we do truly hope that you do feel better.
(And, if you do, send us a note back and let us know ahead of your outpatients appointment so it can be cancelled and given to next on the waitlist. 15% of outpatient appointments in the HSE are “no-shows” (even before pandemic) – one of the commonest reasons was that the patient felt better or no longer felt appointment was necessary.)
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