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Title: My Canadian Healthcare Horror Stories
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URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/leboeuf-schouten1.html
Published: Aug 13, 2009
Author: Cathy LeBoeuf-Shouten
Post Date: 2009-08-13 00:41:25 by Horse
Keywords: None
Views: 342
Comments: 27
I was born in the same year that my government adopted socialized healthcare in Canada. I am an educated, middle-class woman and I have never known any kind of healthcare but the kind that is provided by our government-run system. It has been a nightmare for my family and me. The following stories, told in second person and based on my personal experiences with socialized healthcare in Canada, constitute my personal warning to Americans. Imagine that you and your spouse, and three children under the age of six move to a new city and must find a family doctor. You are told at the local clinic that the doctors there are not accepting any new patients. (Canadian price controls have created shortages of everything when it comes to healthcare). The receptionist suggests that you go through the yellow pages and try to find a physician whose practice is not "full." You spend days, and weeks, doing this, and are repeatedly told "Sorry, we are not accepting new patients." You put your name on several waiting lists and persist in calling doctors’ offices. Finally, a receptionist tells you that, while the doctor is still accepting new patients, he requires a full medical history and an interview with each family member before you can be added to his roster of patients. Based on the questions asked during the interviews, you come to understand that he is screening out sick or potentially sick people. You are all healthy, fortunately, so he takes you on as patients. Others are just out of luck. There is a chronic shortage of doctors in Canada because price controls on doctors’ salaries have resulted in a "brain drain" where the best and brightest practice medicine in the U.S. and elsewhere, after being educated in Canada. In addition, the Canadian government cut medical school enrollment in half in the 1990s as a "cost-cutting measure," making the problem of doctor shortages much worse. Next, imagine that all of a sudden your six-year-old begins showing what seems to be signs of an appendicitis attack, shortly after recuperating from chicken pox. You take him to a hospital emergency room and carry him in because he is unable to walk. There is no one to help you as you enter the building, so you must lumber along to the reception area. A nurse interviews you for a couple of minutes, asks you for the reason for your visit, and then takes your son’s government health card and asks you to fill out paperwork while your son writhes in pain in your lap. You tell the nurse that your son must be seen by a doctor immediately – it’s an emergency! – as his condition is worsening by the minute. The nurse tells you, stone-faced, to go and sit in the waiting room to wait for a triage nurse. Having no choice, you do what you are told and join twenty or so others in line in front of you. You are given nothing to help make your son more comfortable – no damp facecloth, no bedpan for the vomit, nothing. When a triage nurse finally strolls in a half hour later your son is too weak to respond to her and you begin to panic. Finally, a doctor appears and says it’s just a "bug" and that you should not be playing "armchair doctor" by "diagnosing" appendicitis. He orders some time-consuming tests anyway, because you have shown him that you are very, very angry. Six hours later the test results come back positive for appendicitis. Your son is whisked away for an emergency appendectomy, after which the surgeon tells you that, had the surgery been delayed by another few minutes, he would probably have died. Your son’s appendix was gangrenous and on the verge of bursting. It reminds you of reading in the local news of three other people who were sent home from the emergency room, only to have their appendices burst and die. You are grateful that you were much more persistent and ornery than they apparently were. Our Soviet-style emergency rooms have waiting rooms equipped with hard metal chairs, vending machines that sell junk food, and maybe a television in one corner. There is no access to any medical equipment, beds, or even stretchers. In the emergency room everyone passes through triage and is given a code based on a nurse’s cursory evaluation of their affliction. If you are not satisfied with the "care" that is provided there is nowhere else to go, except to an American hospital if you are close enough to the border and can afford to pay cash. Canadians know that if you call an ambulance you can bypass the 10–12 hour wait in the emergency room, but this drives up the costs of healthcare even further. If there ever was a good fight, Americans, this is it. As we say in Canada, "Youse guys just gotta give ’er, eh! August 11, 2009 Cathy LeBoeuf-Shouten lives in Hudson, Quebec, Canada.
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#1. To: Horse (#0)
'She' paints a terrible picture. Not accurate and less than honest in my opinion from my experience.
Epidemiologic features of acute appendicitis in Ontario, Canada Al-Omran M, Mamdani M, McLeod R. Epidemiologic features of acute appendicitis in Ontario, Canada. Can J Surg . 2003; 46 (4): 263-268. To describe the epidemiology of acute appendicitis in the Province of Ontario, this study carried out a retrospective population-based cohort study of all patients with acute appendicitis. The study used hospital discharge abstracts of patients with acute appendicitis from all acute care hospitals in Ontario for the fiscal years 1991-1998 coded for the Canadian Institute for Health Information, and studied the demographic features, particularly age and sex, length of hospital stay (LOS), incidence, and seasonal variation of acute appendicitis. The results showed that during the observation period, 65,675 cases of acute appendicitis occurred in Ontario. Of these, 58% of the patients were male and 35.5% had perforation. The mean (and standard deviation [SD]) LOS for patients with perforation was 6.2 (5.3) days versus 3 (1.8) days for patients with no perforation (p < 0.001). The age-specific incidence of acute appendicitis followed a similar pattern for males and females, but males had higher rates in all age groups. The incidence was highest in those aged 10-19 years. The annual age and sex-adjusted incidence of acute appendicitis was 75 per 100,000 population. The female:male age-adjusted rate ratio was 1:1.4. During the study period, the rate of acute appendicitis decreased by 5.1%, but the rate of appendicitis with perforation increased by 13%. A significant seasonal effect was also observed, with the rate of acute appendicitis being higher in the summer months. This study showed that appendicitis is more common in males, in those aged 10-19 years, and during the summer months. The frequency of acute appendicitis appears to be decreasing whereas the proportion of cases with perforation appears to be increasing. This may reflect a change in the population structure in Ontario and restrictions placed on the patient access to the health care system.
Anti-racism is code for white genocide
Interesting, thank you.
Administration of health care in Canada is carried out by government and institutional bureaucrats whose foremost concern is following rules and regulations, not using commonsense or being concerned about the competitive quality of service. The elected political hacks have never been able to have medical services organized so that the only people "waiting" are the health personnel for patients instead of patients waiting for service and it will ever be thus until private agencies take over and compete with one another for "customers" as is the case with privately operated businesses.
Nonsense.
The Misinformation About the Canadian Health Care System Misinformation of the Canadian Health Care System is bad for US Citizen’s Health There's no 9 hour minimum wait in the Emergency, no weeks wait to get a doctor. I think the wait for an MRI went up a bit. Big deal. People just like to complain about shit. Healthcare here is good. And EVERYONE gets it.
White countries will probably generally make nice health care systems, private or not.
Anti-racism is code for white genocide
At whose expense?
No comment.
At whose expense? Is that a trick question?
Health care (in Canada) is good. And everyone gets it EVENTUALLY. In Edmonton, the unavailability of adequate personnel in Emergency wards has been so bad that ambulance paramedics have had to attend to patients in the hospital rather than being at their stations or on the road to pick up new cases which of course, in true Rube Goldberg fashion, led to a call for more ambulances and paramedics. [i]At whose expense (is Canada's health provided)?[i/] Taxpayers'. Thus there's no direct-line accountability to anyone for the quality (promptness) of service or how the money is spent/wasted. Another example of Rube Goldberg-type of administration at the city hospital is that a patient is dispossessed of jewelry and valuables upon admission and the items are placed in the Emergency's "safekeeping." Once the patient is assigned to a ward the valuables follow to a particular Nursing Station where a nurse signs in responsibility for them. Move to another ward, another nurse signs for them. So we have a nurse burdened with the chore of looking after trinkets instead of devoting full attention to a patient's condition, medications, etc. Seems that no one has thought of having the valuables in one place until discharge but then it would be much harder to have the valuables "disappear."
This is just ridiculous. Have you ever been to the hospital in Canada? Do you believe everything you read? Of course it's paid for by the taxpayers. Did you expect it would be paid by donation? LMAO
CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER - The majority of the American people want a single-payer health care system - Medicare for all. The majority of doctors want it. A good chunk of hospital CEOs want it. But what they want doesn't appear to matter. Why? Because a single-payer health care plan would mean the death of the private health insurance industry and reduced profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Presidential candidates John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Mitt Romney and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talk a lot about universal health care. But not one of them advocates for single-payer - because single-payer too directly confronts the big corporate interests profiting off the miserable health care system we are currently saddled with. "Currently, we are spending almost a third of every health care dollar on administration and paperwork generated by the private health insurance industry," said Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. "Countries like Canada spend about half that much on the billing and paperwork side of medicine. If we go to a single-payer system and are able to cut the billing and paperwork costs of health care, that frees up about $300 billion per year. That's the money we need to cover the uninsured and then improve the coverage for those who have private insurance but are under-insured." "The idea behind single-payer is you don't have to increase total health care spending," Woolhandler said in an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter. "You take the money we are now spending but cut the administrative fat and use that money to cover people." None of the declared Presidential candidates - with the exception of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) - is supporting single-payer. Last year, Kucinich and Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan), introduced a single-payer bill, HR 676, which garnered support of more than 75 members of the House. Woolhandler expects that number to grow substantially this year. Dennis Kucinich Confronts MD Who Claimed Canadian Health Care Was Worse Than The US's
Single payer, like communism, sounds great in theory until you realize there's no real incentive to improve service. Capitalism has been so successful in terms of quality and quantity of production because it is based on providing a better service than the competition. This driving force to improve is obviously absent in any single payer system. A bureaucracy can just coast along, no point in trying to improve things, won't affect your pay check if you do.
That sounds good in a textbook or in the newspaper and maybe even here on this thread, but the reality is that there IS incentive. There must be or else how would you explain the improvements in service I've seen here? Medical technology is always improving and people in Canada are still receiving quality care. EVERYONE that is a citizen is receiving it. Not just three quarters of the population. There is no obvious absence of a driving force to improve the quality of service here, only false information or exaggerated stories you hear from the media. The source of that being, I suppose, those who stand to lose, that is, Big Pharm and the Private Insurance companies. Not everyone is motivated by money. Some of us just like to help each other. Now, having said that, of course the system here isn't perfect. Every system has it's flaws. I'm not even saying that the U.S. should change their system. What I am saying is that trying to argue that it shouldn't be changed because Canada's system is bad is dishonest, unfair and misleading.
Probably the only incentive to improve in a sole provider system is embarrassment at being behind the times. Some years ago I was at a hospital-sponsored lecture following which I discussed with a staff member some matter, I think it had to do with stents, and in her response was the assertion that we're (Canadians) ten years behind the United States in medical techniques. The snafu nature of sole providers, especially government, is well illustrated by Alberta's Conservative government turning over driver and motor vehicle licensing to private "registries" where you get your license renewed in minutes compared to having to wait in line for a half hour or more when government bureaucrats were providing the service. Maybe not everyone is motivated by money but the "best" seem to be. Why else would Canada's top doctors head for the United States?
You're Canadian right? I think I knew that but forgot. Sorry. Are we behind the times? Are we ten years behind the States in medical techniques? I know car insurance is much less expensive in Alberta. Profit or money is simply not the only or even main driving force in medicine. I'm not sure that Canada's top doctors head to the U.S. Maybe some do. Certainly not all of them. Maybe we don't need the ones who are only in it for the money anyway. Nevertheless...... My main point here is that it seems there is a lot of misinformation and exaggeration. The use of rare or unusual examples to mislead people to think they are the norm. Like saying we all live in igloos.
If you live in Canada, you know that. Which makes me wonder why you would be believing or pretending to believe this media hype misinformation garbage.
All I'm pointing out is that in every competitive private sector business, perhaps with the exception of dentists, it's not the customers/clients who have to wait for service.
My point is not whether there is a wait or not, but how long the wait is. The articles you have posted cite relatively rare examples of long waits giving an outsider the impression that they are the norm.
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C. The Russians used a pencil.
Did you expect it would be paid by donation? In other words, it is forced wealth redistribution.
This is a lie. Blatant, outright lie.
Piggybacking on the vestiges of the remaining partially free market systems. Once those are destroyed, the only improvements you'll see will be those squeezed out of a black market system.
Interesting that there seems to be a set of people who are making up a bunch of very negative stories concerning the Canadian Health system. I've come upon a number of theses and they just smell like GOP/Insurance propaganda for the gullible goobers here in the US - about 30% of the population. The truth of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of Canadians are very satisfied with their system. Some do come to the US, usually for elective operations. That folks would publish rank lies reveals how terrified they are of the reforms that would wreck their very lucrative monopoly they have in the current corrupt US system.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Thank You.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#2. To: wudidiz (#1)
#3. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#2)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#4. To: Horse (#0)
#5. To: Tatarewicz (#4)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#6. To: Horse, Prefrontal Vortex, Tatarewicz, all (#0)
I've lived in Canada for 41 years. Believe me, most of what they're telling you about how the healthcare here is bad, is bullshit. Don't ask me why. I can only guess.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#7. To: All (#6)
(Edited)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#8. To: wudidiz (#7)
#9. To: wudidiz (#7)
Healthcare here is good. And EVERYONE gets it.
#10. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#8)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#11. To: Mr Nuke Buzzcut (#9)
Healthcare here is good. And EVERYONE gets it.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#12. To: Mr Nuke Buzzcut (#9)
#13. To: Tatarewicz, Nuke Buzzcut, all (#12)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#14. To: All (#13)
(Edited)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#15. To: wudidiz (#14)
#16. To: Tatarewicz (#15)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#17. To: wudidiz (#16)
#18. To: Tatarewicz (#17)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#19. To: Tatarewicz, All (#18)
My main point here is that it seems there is a lot of misinformation and exaggeration. The use of rare or unusual examples to mislead people to think they are the norm.
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#20. To: wudidiz (#19)
#21. To: Tatarewicz (#20)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#22. To: Tatarewicz, all (#20)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
#23. To: wudidiz (#13)
Of course it's paid for by the taxpayers.
#24. To: wudidiz (#14)
The majority of the American people want a single-payer health care system - Medicare for all. The majority of doctors want it. A good chunk of hospital CEOs want it.
#25. To: wudidiz (#16)
There must be or else how would you explain the improvements in service I've seen here?
#26. To: wudidiz (#13)
#27. To: tom007 (#26)
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." ~ Josh Billings
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