Health care is about doctors, patients

Thank you for your editorial, "Get vaccine to those who need it most". Indeed medical offices have been waiting to get H1N1 vaccines for their patients while health departments have been devising other ways to disburse the long-awaited vaccine.

Over the course of this fall you've told stories of people waiting in line for hours, of others having to make online appointments at 3 a.m., of so many trying to make online appointments that servers crash, yet still others given the shot as they tried to say they weren't really a candidate for one.

Schools seem to be a pet recipient of the health department's vaccine stocks, and to some extent they've done a commendable job. But of course they're in the education, not the inoculation business.

Yet the physicians charged with providing medical care for these, their patients, were still awaiting vaccine shipments.

It is ironic that this public health debacle has occurred as our government is struggling with the issue of health care reform. Although I have been a physician for over 30 years, I don't pretend to have brilliant answers to this complex matter. I appreciate and honor any sincere effort to resolve it. I am concerned, however, that the current debate seems to center on who gets to drive a wedge between physicians and their patients - should it now be the government, or can it still be insurance companies? And I am not at all impressed by this particular government foray into medical care.

It is also ironic that this has happened as pediatrics and medicine itself are putting renewed emphasis on the concept of the "medical home" The bond between physician and patient has always been a sacred one. But we live in an age when government, insurance companies, and society itself must be reminded of that fact.

Dr. Bruce Bedingfield

Hoffman Estates