What About The Patients?????

This is a letter that I plan to write to the editor of our local newspaper:
(On this day I was receiving my 46th tysabri infusion.  This is sort of a sequel to my post "Conspiracy in the Biggest Little City")

Dear Editor,

On January 15, 2013 I was receiving a medical treatment for Multiple Sclerosis and chatting with my nurse about the shortage of MS neurologists in Reno.  To add insult to injury, there are a group of neurologists that will not see you if you are a former patient of any doctor who does call outs or are "on call" with their group.  Case in point.  I called a neurologist that was referred to me.  I am a former patient of another neurologist in their "on call" group.  I asked the receptionist why their doctor would not take me as a patient and her genius answer was....pause....wait for it....."I don't know".

She attempted to come up with an explanation but she couldn't come up with anything that actually made sense to discriminate a patient based on those grounds.  So she did what any person does when they don't know anything.  She transferred me to a recording.  I explained to the voice mail that I wanted a detailed explanation as to why a patient would be denied on such grounds.  All of this took place on speaker phone in front of the nurse and she was baffled to say the least.  She was not aware of this problem with our limited number of MS neurologists.

All this mayhem is tied to one doctor in particular who seems to be pretty powerful.  You see, he is a great MS doctor.  As a matter of fact, he is one of the best but he is extremely rude to his peers, staff, nurses, patients and just about everyone he deals with.  I have spoken to many MS patients who complain about this doctor and are in the same predicament with trying to "opt out" with not much luck at all.    I even tried to get permission to switch to the other doctor in his group and they both denied that too.  Even though I had not done anything wrong.  I just wanted a doctor that is capable of showing me some respect.  I have enough going on as an MS patient.

My biggest problem with this is, he gets away with it.  Why is he still in business?  Why do patients have to be plagued by a doctor that is incapable of being respectful to them?  As of today, it is my personal mission to find out.

Starla Espinoza
Sparks, NV


PS, no one has called me back from that doctors office yet.  I guess I will have to call again and I don't plan to stop until I get a clear, detailed explanation.