Netting top-notch health care
During the 2015-16 hockey season, Junior B goalie Patrick Ostermann thought his dream of getting a U.S. hockey scholarship might be over.
The 18-year-old — who has played hockey since age three or four — injured his right knee while playing for the Nelson, B.C., Leafs in a Kootenay International Junior League game.
“The team doctor looked at it, he was treated and put on rest, was in no pain and completed the season,” says father Detlef.
But during training camp in May last year, Patrick reinjured the knee. He returned home to Calgary to see his doctor and his parents paid privately for an MRI.
“There was a three- to six-month waiting list for an MRI and Patrick needed to get on
the ice by August to play for the chance for a U.S. scholarship,” says Detlef.
The diagnosis of the MRI — which was performed within three days because they paid for it themselves — was a reopening of a tear in the knee’s medial meniscus.
The family was told there was a six- to nine-month waiting list just to see a specialist — and an undetermined time after that before the surgery could be scheduled.
“It wasn’t just that he would be tossing away his aspirations, his dreams of playing in the NCAA, it’s that every step he was taking, he was in pain. He would have had to spend six to nine months waiting in pain,” says Detlef, the semi-retired, former part owner of an oil and gas company.
The family decided to look for another alternative.
A private clinic doctor in British Columbia insisted on carte blanche to go ahead with whatever procedure he thought would be best without consulting the family. They decided to keep looking. On the recommendation of their GP, they contacted Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Montana.
About a week after sending all Patrick’s information to the hospital, including the results of the MRI, an in-person consultation and surgery were scheduled.
Patrick and his mom Jitka travelled to Kalispell at the end of last May. The experience surprised her.
“I told my husband and anyone else who would listen how dumbstruck I was by the efficient, friendly, organized and communicative service. It was beyond anything I had experienced in our health-care system.”
She and her son had a lengthy consultation with the doctor, where he explained exactly what he was going to do and answered questions. Two hours later her son went into surgery — after the nurses again went over everything, followed by sessions with the surgeon and the anesthetist.
After the surgery, “the doctor came out in his scrubs with a whole rack of photos that took me step-by-step through what he had done,” says Jitka, followed by a phone call to do the same with her husband.
The family was also provided with a package of the surgery photos and the process to follow for Patrick’s care.
“It was idiot-proof,” Jitka says. “So easy to understand at a time when it is easy to get overwhelmed.”
In the end, the family says the $8,000 spent for the surgery was entirely worth it. The Kalispell experience “ran like clockwork — something that is so foreign to me,” says Jitka.
Patrick was back on the ice by the end of August and is now well into the new season, this time playing with the Creston Valley Thunder Cats.
The dream of hockey and university is still alive.