what? when? phone call

So back in August of last year I posted this about GAMF and GAP. In a nutshell, I had been assigned to a suite of doctors in Lachine.

Quite unexpectedly I received a phone call today from the Clinique Médical de l'Ouest de L'Ile de Montréal in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue at what has been for decades known as the Veteran's Hospital but which in the last five years or so was opened up to be used by Quebec's health care.

I have been assigned to a specific family doctor whom I will be meeting on Feb 15th. I had planned on calling GAP in May to organize a checkup, and now I don't have to.

I have not been followed by any type of doctor since I was a kid being followed by a pediatrician. Through these intervening years I have seen a few doctors at clinics for the rare occasion where I would have an ear infection or strep throat.

I am in good health and have no complaints of any kind, but it will be good to start a record of my health so as to have something to compare to when I get older.

GAMF -> GAP

Back on September 4, 2019 in this post I put in with GAMF a request to have a family doctor here in Quebec assigned to me. It was mentioned that it would take 612 days.

Today in the mail I received a letter from GAMF that I now have a team of doctors assigned to me, but that I am not to contact them directly, but instead to call GAP who will then decide if I am to be seen by one of the doctors on that team. I received the letter today (Aug 22) however, the letter is dated Aug 3 and indicates I have been covered by that team of doctors as of Aug 3, which is 1064 days since I first signed up with GAMF.

That it is a team, the letter states, it is highly likely that I would see different doctors over time. The letter also states that if I am offered, by one of these doctors, to become one of their patients such that they become my family doctor, that I will no longer have to go through GAP and will no longer be team doctored.

The location of this team is in Lachine, in not exactly a convenient location for me considering where I live. What would be a 15 min drive if I had a car is a 45 min transit or 2hr walk to get there.

Anyhow, this is good news; I won't do anything about it until next spring as next summer I will begin the second half of a century of existence. I expect to still be in as good health next spring as I am now, but I'd like to get baseline measurements of things I can't see or feel and to look into preventative medicine.

GAMF - Guichet d'accès à un médecin de famille

GAP - guichet d’accès à la première ligne

In case I misplace the form the GAP phone number I am to call is 514-693-6663, and the clinic is called Med Nam Lachine, 2000 Notre Dame W H8S 2G4.

what else can be said about the limit

In this post I mentioned I'd call again, and I did. This time I did not reach a person directly and was compelled to leave a message, which I did.

No indication as to how soon I would get a call back, but hopefully it won't be long.

I'm leaving soon to attend a Montreal Alliance game; this will be the second time I attend a game this season.

lintel bintle

If you'll recall this post, you'll know I've been waiting. Today is day 1000.

Who would have guessed 1000 days could pass. Of course, no one would have guessed that a pandemic would happen during those 1000 days.

800 days, what?

If you'll recall this post, you'll know I've been waiting. Today is day 800.

On my previous GAMF post I indicated I would call someone to check on my status on my next anniversary on my annual trip around the sun, 219 days from now.

GAMF 700

Yes, so I have reminders on my calendar about GAMF.

In this post I mentioned that I applied to have a family medicine doctor assigned to me and the response I got was that it would be assigned within the next 612 days.

In this post I mentioned that we had gone past the 612 days and that I made a phone call and was actually able to speak to someone who confirmed I was still on a list and that I had not yet had a doctor assigned.

Today is the 700th day since I put in the application, 88 days since the deadline I was given in the original email. On day 1019 (the date I next celebrate the anniversary of my trips around the sun) I will call them again to check up on my application. 

I am still in quite good health, so there still is no urgency for me, though as I get closer to 18262 days old I am hoping that I will get one assigned soon.

counting your chickens before they turn into eggs

If I could fit on the tip of the head of a pin the entirety of the knowledge accumulated by all past and present and very near future civilizations, wouldn't it be unlucky if I lost the pin?

It is particularly helpful when all of the street lights turn green at precisely the time, when walking, a person approaches the intersection while walking from the starting point in a roughly north easterly direction for approximately four kilometres. I should know.

Ignominiously holding her head down, the Fox Terrier, if she was to have actual thoughts, would be pleading for forgiveness for the furniture embellishment she thought was a good thing to do. 

I don't know if all of the sentences in this post will continue to begin with the letter 'I'. I suppose you, as the reader, will come to know the truth as this post continues.

Eye drops are used, depending on the variety and the type of eye, to assist with a variety of ocular ailments. Perhaps ten or twelve years ago it somehow came to be that my intraocular pressure had to have been measured and was found to be just ever so slightly higher than normal. I was prescribed Xalatan and used it consistently over the span of about four years throughout which annually I would have additional eye pressure tests. With each subsequent test I decreased the Xalatan until eventually I just stopped. Six months after having completely stopped I went for what ended up being my last eye pressure test and it came out normal. Perhaps the initial reading was flawed? Who knows.

Once the GAMF works out I may ask for a referral to an ophthalmologist to check on this again. Left untreated, ocular hypertension can lead to glaucoma and eventually blindness.

heh, GAMF

I'm a little late; it was three days ago that marked the 612th day that the GAMF notification indicated would be the amount of delay before having a family medicine practitioner assigned to me.

I do suspect that it is possible that the pandemic may have put a delay on the GAMF assignment process.

So I found there was a number I could call to check the status of my application; I called it and fortunately got to speak to someone who pulled up my application file. Indeed, she confirmed that I have not yet had a doctor assigned to me. She asked me a couple of questions that would have raised me on the priority list, but I am in very good health, so my answers were negative for those questions. I mentioned that I'm 17493 days old and so I'm heading into a period of my life that having a regular checkup may soon become important, and I also mentioned that likely the pandemic has caused a delay in doctors taking on new patients. She agreed that the pandemic hasn't helped. She ended off by saying that if my health situation changes for the worse that I should call back at that same number and advise them so that my application can be updated and my priority raised.

In a few weeks I'll be celebrating my anniversary of trips around the sun; so at the end of that trip that will soon start, I'll call again; and then again on each anniversary.

GAMF 500

So way back in 2019 I posted this post to mention my application to have a family doctor assigned to me using the friendly and easy to use GAMF site that the Quebec Health Ministry has set up. Today marks the 500th day since that application which had indicated it could take up to 612 days.

I expect this little pandemic thing that is happening may delay this assignment. I still am quite healthy, fit, have a stable and healthy BMI, grip strength, stride pace; are all good. Given this, I am not concerned that this is taking its time; however, once I reach 18262 days old; if I haven't yet been assigned one, I think I'll take a more proactive approach.

day 300 and counting

So in this post I mentioned how getting a GP at my age (17178 days) is probably a good idea to start looking into things as a preventative medicine path. Today marks the 300th day since I submitted to get a GP and I was told at the time of application that it could take up to 612 days, so I'm just a few days short of being half way through the wait.

I wonder if this SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will delay further the assignment of a GP. I guess time will tell.

GAMF

Heh, so a co-worker sent an email company-wide reminding us that it is a good idea to get an annual medical checkup and that some employers encourage this. The idea is preventative medicine and early detection are far better than treatments later on that may have deleterious side effects.

Without a GP I went to the GAMF website where I applied for being added to a GPs list, and I got the response back that the wait time is 612 days. 612 days from now is May 8, 2021.

It helps that I am not in any ill health at the moment; I'm reasonably fit and not over weight and I don't smoke. Still, there are LDL and HDL levels that I can only know through blood tests, and rectal exams that I'm neither able nor qualified to do on my own.

Here's the actual message I got:

Vous êtes maintenant inscrit au Guichet d'accès à un médecin de famille. Votre inscription a été enregistrée le 04 septembre 2019.

Actuellement, dans votre région, le délai d'attente pour les personnes dont l'état de santé est semblable au vôtre est estimé à 612 jours à compter de la date d'inscription initiale. Dès qu'un médecin pourra vous prendre en charge, il communiquera avec vous.

Vous pouvez changer vos coordonnées téléphoniques en tout temps en recommençant l'inscription. Le délai d'attente ne sera pas modifié.

Merci d'avoir utilisé le service en ligne.

So, once a doctor takes my application, the doctor will communicate with me, and this could happen, I suppose, any time between now and May 8, 2021, but more likely in 2021 than in 2019.