{"id":16617,"date":"2012-06-06T18:42:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T22:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=16617"},"modified":"2012-06-06T18:42:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T22:42:12","slug":"ohip-and-turf-toe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/ohip-and-turf-toe\/","title":{"rendered":"OHIP and turf toe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I stubbed the big toe of my left foot on a plastic crate that was full of wine bottles. No. I hadn\u2019t been sampling any of the contents of the crate, but the stub was quite hard. I thought little of it until the next day when my foot was red, ugly (actually, my feet are always ugly, but it was particularly <\/em>\u00a0ugly) and swollen. I had difficulty walking.<\/p>\n

On Monday my wife packed me off to a local clinic to see a doctor who didn\u2019t say much other than, \u201cx-ray; I will call you later today\u201d. I had the x-ray and the day ended without a phone call. The next day I called the clinic\u2019s office and asked for a result.<\/p>\n

\u201c We don\u2019t give results over the phone\u201d was the response.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I was promised a phone call yesterday. At least tell me if there was a fracture\u201d, I remonstrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have called you if there was a fracture\u201d was the response.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould you at least confirm that and get back to me.\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll leave a note for the nurse, but if you want to discuss this further you will have to come back in.\u201d And sit for hours in our waiting room with dozens of other sick people who are all coughing up blood. She didn\u2019t say that last bit.<\/p>\n

I would not have bothered with a doctor\u2019s visit for this if it had not been for the fact that we are off on a trip to Europe this week and it will necessitate a lot of walking \u2013 or hobbling.<\/p>\n

Today, feeling no better, in desperation, I called a private foot doctor who specialises in sports injuries. Unlike my OHIP employee, he came to the phone immediately and told me that I probably had \u201cturf toe\u201d. \u201cThe second joint of your toe is compressed\u201d, he said. “Try pulling on it to relieve the pressure and wiggle it horizontally to break adhesions. Also use a stiff soled shoe and tape it to the next toe.” This was free advice. After a few minutes of pulling and wiggling, my foot felt profoundly better.<\/p>\n

Now, to be balanced, a good friend has just had a double lung transplant and is doing well; this was all courtesy of OHIP without which it would have cost millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

So, if you need a lung transplant, OHIP is there for you. If you stub your toe, call a private practitioner and bypass the overweeningly arrogant government subsidised quacks who are unable to use a telephone or recognise that the toe they are inspecting is connected to a human being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I stubbed the big toe of my left foot on a plastic crate that was full of wine bottles. No. I hadn\u2019t been sampling any of the contents of the crate, but the stub was quite hard. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[1174],"class_list":["post-16617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-ohip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}