How You Feeling?

An interlude with the dentist reminds me of the question people who don’t live in Point Roberts often ask me about Point Roberts. Specifically, “What do you do for health care?” Good question. As one can imagine, the almost 4-square-mile peninsula does not have an HMO, a hospital, an ER, a fully-staffed clinic, or even a doc-in-a-box, let alone a dentist. There’s no home health care business, no hospice program, and no pharmacy. The International Market does carry a respectable but limited supply of over-the-counter medicines, so we are never deprived of, say, aspirin. In a sense, you are unusually on your own, so mostly, I think, we try to stay well.

When we moved here, the options were either try out the Canadian practitioners who are just minutes across the border or drive to Blaine/Bellingham, either of which has its problems, although I did try the Canadians who, I found, had special prices for Americans. But when we moved here, we were still also living in Los Angeles, so we pretty much waited until we went down there, even for emergencies, as it turned out. Once the L.A. part was over, though, we somewhat incorporated ourselves into what is here. Canada has dentists and their charges and services are pretty comparable to the U.S. (especially now that the exchange rate makes the two dollars about even). My U.S. dental insurance pays for Canadian care, although it doesn’t do it at a very rapid rate which, I assume is a result of their having to figure out the exchange rates.

Medical care: a little more complicated. About five years ago, Point Roberts managed to put together a special, targeted tax increase that funded a local clinic—the Aydon Wellness Clinic, pictured above--and staffed by a nurse-practitioner. It is also connected in some way with a Bellingham hospital, so you can get a referral to docs who practice at that hospital. Bellingham is about an hour’s drive away assuming the border crossing is minimal time. The nurse-practitioner’s husband happens to have laboratory tech experience and so he does some of that work here, as well. The clinic is good for simple ‘emergencies.’ You run a nail into your foot; you can get a tetanus shot. You fall off your deck (as I did), and the nurse-practitioner can tell you whether you need to go to an ER or just go home and lie down with an ice pack. Routine monitoring for chronic conditions is available there, as are routine tests, immunizations, injections, and other stuff common to routine general medical practice. However, it’s open only three days a week. And the NP and lab tech husband are a special combination of service-providers, not likely to be duplicated. Furthermore, they were already retired and living in Point Roberts. If they quit (by choice or by inevitability), not clear whether they could be easily replaced.

Thus, one is still dependent on some other medical system. People often comment that it would be good if we had a doctor here, but we did once and it didn’t work out at all. Maybe eight years ago, a Canadian M.D. managed to get himself licensed in the U.S. and procured a green card and set up shop in Point Roberts. But there wasn’t enough clientele to keep him occupied. I think that’s ultimately because people aren’t looking for a doctor here now: they’re wishing there had been one here a long time back so that he/she would already be their doctor. After all, one makes some accommodation to the system you live with and starting up with a new doctor is a big psychological investment. Maybe he won’t stay; maybe you won’t like him; maybe you’d better hang on to whatever doctor-connection you’ve already made, even if it’s inconvenient.

A few years later, the B.C. insurance company that provides malpractice for B.C. physicians announced that it would no longer include in that coverage care provided to Americans. Later, the insurance company said it would make an exception for Americans living in Point Roberts, which was nice, but a strange business decision that I wouldn’t want to rely on if I were a Canadian doc. Medicare is said to cover costs of care in a Canadian hospital if it is closer than the nearest American hospital and if you are not in Canada on vacation. That is, the Canadian hospital must be nearer to where you live than the closest American hospital is to where you live. I looked it up in the Medicare regulations and wrote down the regulation section number in case I ever needed it. I suspect that, like the dental insurance reimbursement, that check will not be quick in arriving in my mailbox, though.

A commitment to Christian Science or exclusively to alternative medicine is probably the best answer to health care in Point Roberts. Or maybe just a strict regimen of daily exercise, no smoking, moderate alcohol use, and balanced and moderate meals, plus no prior medical conditions. Hard to know which one to choose