Oh How I Miss The NHS!

I bet you never thought you'd hear me say that, now did you? But it's true...

I've forgotten how expensive Australia is for health care. A few weeks back, I signed back on with a doctor (well, actually, you don't have to sign on but seeing as I have quite a few stupid health issues, I thought it best to do so - and then get my NHS stuff sent over so the doctor would know what on earth I was going on about). So I make an appointment, rock on up to the "quack" - and then promptly pay $90 for the privilege. $90! (That's about 45 pounds...). Granted, under the Medicare system, I got about $60 back in my refund, but still - $30 (15 pounds) out of pocket just to sign up with the doctor and get her to write a few referral letters.

Then this week I had the first of those referral appointments. You see, for some time now I've had quite a lot of problem with my voice, which is not good (a) for teachers, and (b) especially not good for music teachers who spend quite a lot of time singing with their kids in class. Not good at all. And this problem has been going on for some time, ever since 2004 when I first received treatment for it with the NHS. I was referred to the hospital and an ENT put a scope up my nose and determined that I didn't have nodules on the vocal folds, and then sent me off to a voice therapist. I went to her for about a year but really didn't make any progress at all, and as it was very difficult to get there for her appointments, I kind of made out to her that it was now all ok, and stopped going. Well, the reason it was now "all ok", of sorts, was because we'd taken on a few student teachers, so I wasn't doing as much talking and singing as I had been. But really, there had been no improvement, and I thought maybe that was down to the accent thing, or something.

So I'd decided that once I got back, I'd get it looked at again. Basically, not one day goes by that my voice doesn't hurt at the end of, because of normal talking (and it absolutely kills on days when I've been teaching). As for singing, well, I haven't done that in ages - I've lost half of my range. This is pretty scary when you think that from next week, I'll be back teaching using a methodology that relies extremely heavily on singing - and I can't really do it.

So therefore I requested a referral again to check out whether I've unfortunately developed any nodules or something. That appointment took place this past Wednesday. The only advantage of the Australian medical system is that generally, because you have to pay so much, you don't usually have to wait so long.

Anyway, I went to the ENT, he had a quick look, shoved the scope up the nose and so on - and the outcome is that it seems to be nothing to do with my vocal folds, rather, I've developed a load of polyps or some such up there. So I'm on some medication, and some vicious nose drops, and have to go back in a month's time. This is a huge - let me say again - HUGE relief!

Unfortunately, its not a relief on my wallet - that little 15 minutes cost me $260 (130 pounds - although I should get some back on Medicare), plus the cost of the medicines (try $70) - and a repeat visit in a month's time! Oh how I miss the lovely NHS...!