my Cabenuva shot that wasn't

[CalvinC]

Hi all

Health care here in Canada is generally very good, and my HIV care has been excellent. But some of our health care is farmed out to third parties -- costs are still covered by the government -- and here's an example of what can happen. I don't know  if any of you have had an experience like this (not necessarily with Cabenuva), and I'm curious.

Here's a cc of the email I sent to Bayshore, the third party. This all happened just an hour or so ago.

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Hello

I had an appointment today, via Melissa of Bayshore, with Josephine, to have my first Cabenuva shot. As it turned out, I did not get the shot, and I'd like to get from you some rationale as to why I might continue with Bayshore. -- But wait, I don't think it would make any difference what Bayshore might say.

I suppose I should have known that things wouldn't go well when I got a phone mesage from Melissa, with the transmission cutting out and a dog barking in the background. But, okay, people are working from home. But still.

I got to the appointment at the Village Pharmacy on Yonge St, and Josephine arrived about 10 minutes late. No big deal. But what followed was just plain terrible.

We went into a private room -- if one can call a room with glass walls, only partially frosted, right in the pharmacy, "private" -- whose central feature was a very large examination table. with no chairs and almost no room to move. Seriously. I stood there. Josephine was harried, and haphazardly explained what was going to happen. There was no temporal logic to what she was saying, punctuated by rhetorical questions to which I could only answer "If you say so" or "I don't know, as I assume you do." She took out this wad of papers upon which she wrote appointments, with scribbles all over, and she asked me if I was going to come again on May 24. My response? See above.

It went on like this, as Josephine hurried along and was doing this and that while I stood there with my jacket still on, wondering that people outside the glass window could easily guess what was going on by the movement of legs. I supposed that at some point the people outside would see my pants drop as I bent over or got on the table or whatever. When Josephine began shaking the vials I realized that I had had enough, politely declined Josphine's service -- she didn't say anything one way or another -- and left, aghast.

I am telling you all this because this is NOT health care. People calling you on the phone with dogs barking and pharmacies that are laughably "private" and needle-injectors (or whatever position Josephine might hold) who have no sense that I'm a very concerned human being: this is not health care. It is corporate disquiet.

Perhaps I've been fortunate throughout my life that I've had nothing but wonderful health care, especially at Sunnybrook. But nothing prepared me for this Keystone Kops version of "health care" that Bayshore is peddling. I'll gladly stay on a pill regimen until I can find someone who knows what health care is.

Good day.

[Jim Allen]

Sorry to hear that you had a disappointing experience with Josephine and its delayed your switch in treatment.

Hopefully, you can find another service or someone more professional