I spent about three hours in the emergency department of the Penticton Regional Hospital on Aug. 8 waiting for the doctor to see me.
Why I was in there is not what I'd call a funny story; I fell on my way into work, and smashed by head into the wall, among other scrapes and bruises.
The coffee I was carrying in either hand also promptly exploded on impact, which made for a sticky situation. The gushing blood pouring down my forehead onto the steps didn't help that either.
I'm sure I must have been a sight, as I sat there with my glasses lying in a puddle of coffee, my shirt stained and my hair soaked, cursing in pain.
After getting helped the rest of the way to the office, I cleaned the worst of the blood up, grabbed a spare shirt, and one of my coworkers gave me a ride to the hospital.
There I went through their triage check-in, where I waited about 20 minutes behind a couple other people. I got a quick check, asked a few questions including whether I'd lost consciousness at all, given a couple pain-killers and then sent over to wait.
It took probably another half-hour for a nurse to call me over and take me to a examining room inside the emergency department proper, where I waited another couple hours for the doctor to come in and see me.
I ended up with three stitches to knit the area above my eyebrow back together.
Once that was done, I got a ride back to the office to pick up the car, did what I could at work, and finished off the day at home.
I definitely wish my trip had been much shorter, 100 per cent.
But if I were asked to change anything else to make that wait shorter, I'm not sure I would.
While I was there, other people came in after me and were seen sooner, with things like broken arms, or other more serious injuries.
There was a kid with his dad on vacation who was, if I remember right, hurt playing around at the pool. Another woman had come in before me with a case of suddenly-developed crippling light sensitivity.
These people, who came in before or after me, were all seen before I was, and I'm happy with that.
I'm glad that my case wasn't so severe that I was seen right away. Would I have liked that? Absolutely, but I also know our health care is a limited resource, and I was willing to wait my turn for it.
I also walked out of there without having to shell out an extra dollar to be seen, or for the stitches, or the Tylenol, or anything else that a private hospital might charge.
This was the first time I'd been to the emergency department in years, decades even, outside of a couple work assignments, and I can't really complain about my experience.
But that was my experience, and mine alone.
If I had been in a community where emergency services have closed down, whether for just a few hours or even longer, I can only imagine the difference in experience that would be.
I was less than 10 minutes' drive from work to the hospital, and less than 15 from the hospital to my home. The hospital is big, a regional hub for the whole South Okanagan.
That means it's prioritized over smaller places such as Keremeos and Oliver.
Those communities deserve to have services available to them that aren't an hour's drive away.
A new funding agreement was supposed to deal with Oliver's issues, but that hasn't seemed to have made a significant impact.
More needs to be done so that other people, like me, can wait locally to get the care they need.
Brennan Phillips is a journalist with the Penticton Western News at Black Press.
