"Gardner, Beverly" wrote:
>
> Hear!  Hear!   If I put "Here!  Here!" people might not take me seriously.
> But it is also echoing the fact that we have many of the underpaid who fill
> the ERs.  We do, however, need more, accessible clinics that people can go
> to & be comfortable with before their problems get serious enough to need
> hospitalization.

I've had a lot of experience with the "underpaid" and have found two
major
roadblocks among this population to utilizing "more, accessible"
health
facilities.  These are (1) people who never been employed have no
innate
understanding of time in terms of keeping appointments, and (2) some
cultures
discourage taking medicine and see taking medication (even aspirin) as
a
sign of moral weakness. I encountered both of these while running a
small town/rural single-practitioner medical practice some years ago
in the
states of Georgia and Alabama. I have also encountered the second of
these
in other settings, particularly among young and middle-aged present
and
former military personnel and (some of) their family members.

Elizabeth Whitaker
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P.O. Box 2147
Easley, South Carolina 29640