Gore Medical Centre

This post is long overdue. I finally remembered to carry my camera with me on a mid-day run and stopped at the clinic to capture a few shots of Ruben at work. The clinic has three full-time GPs and a part-time GP who happens to be the wife of one of the full-time GPs. (That couple is originally from Germany, worked for a while in England, then immigrated to NZ and plan to stay). The nurses in the clinic work like nurse practitioners, seeing patients and consulting with the docs. 

A typical clinic morning session is from 9 to 12:30 with 10 scheduled patients and one or two consultations with the nurses and LOTS of paperwork. The NZ health care system provides a basic level of care for all citizens (with private insurance available at an additional fee) and the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), which provides financial compensation and support to citizens, residents, and temporary visitors who have suffered personal injuries. Everyone wants his or her issue paid for by the ACC, so R spends a lot of time filing out the paperwork for ACC. He doesn't award the funds; he just submits the claim. For example, he saw a woman who had a sprained thumb from a mountain biking accident. ACC. But he also saw a sheep-shearer with carpal tunnel syndrome whose claim was rejected. Older folks can participate in the CarePlus Program, which in return for committing to regular office visits provides greatly subsidized office visits and medication for chronic conditions associated with aging, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Younger folks can participate in the sexually transmitted infection (STI) program, which provides testing, education, and condoms. There's an entirely separate subsidized health care program for the Maori population, which appears to have backfired into an entitlement mentality, but that's fodder for a separate post.

The clinic, from the street.

Rubber boots are standard farm uniform and it is not unusual to see  boots lined up outside stores
and other places of business. Even in restaurants and the grocery store it's not too unusual to see people in
their socks. There are also a lot of barefoot people. But I don't think that's because of muddy shoes; it's just
people going barefoot. Island living!

Ruben at his desk, which is also his exam room.

Exam table on the wall opposite the desk.

Unlike the clinic in Colorado where he has medical assistants who take patient vitals and perform basic tests,
here R does all that himself, as he is demonstrating here, with a urine test kit. 

In Colorado medical assistants also take care of changing the exam table linens. Near the end of his first week at the Gore clinic, R realized the linens on his exam table hadn't been changed once and figured out that he's probably supposed to be doing that. He was anxious to tell me that he was making liberal use of the disinfectant spray, however!

Work station

Procedure room

Procedure room

Twice-daily tea breaks are a definite highlight. 

R riding his bike  home from work for lunch.

Rather than carry a change of clothes, Ruben wears  his rain suit over his work clothes for the short ride to the clinic. It keeps his clothes free of road dirt and bike chain grease, and he's prepared for the rain that could come at any minute.