Is There A Doctor In This Town?

Hard to believe but we've had a bit of trouble finding a doctor in this town. Yu-Jin had a wart appear on his thumb close to two months ago. I didn't think too much of it as I had a few warts on my hands when I was a kid. But recently it started to get much bigger and the colour changed. Before getting a doctor's appointment Miky saw a couple of chemist and one told her to get some antibiotics and the other said see the doctor.

Well, an appointment was made at Yu-Jin's normal clinic at the university. Not sure what happened, perhaps she mixed the dates up, but come last Monday and she needed to change the time but there was no answer from the clinic as it was closed. I rang the university itself and discovered that the whole place was closed, not just the clinic.

There are a couple of other doctors' clinics nearby and we were starting to worry as it looks pretty bad so Miky gave them a call. One clinic informed her that they were not taking any new clients and the other said that they weren't taking new clients until next month. WTF?

The only thing I could think of was the Australian Locum Medical Service. I rang them on 9328 7111 and a doctor, after getting a little bit lost, visited us about an hour later. Now that's service. He only charged A$112.50 for the 10 or so minutes he was here but happily he bulk-billed which means I didn't have to pay a cent up front. If it was for me I would have had to have paid. He said that if a red line had started stretching up Yu-Jin's arm then that would have indicated blood poisoning and would be very serious, even life-threatening. Miky had been putting antiseptic cream on the would which had opened up, which is why it became infected, which was the right thing to do.

I bought the antibiotics and some antiseptic fluid to put on it. The doctor said that it may clear up by itself but it would be a good idea to use the antibiotic if anything changed. And he informed us that it was safe to use the antibiotic as I was a little concerned with the overprescription of antibiotics that we hear about in the media so much.

Can't believe it was so difficult to find a doctor in this town. "Is there a doctor in the house?" - Yes, and he doesn't take long to arrive but he can't do any minor surgery.