A letter read on John Gormley Live this morning;
I work at RUH ER and over the past week the staff have been stressed beyond breaking.
Since last Monday the ER has been saturated to between 160% and last night it was at 195% occupancy that translates into 78 patients for 40 ER Beds.
Of the 30 beds in the main ER there we now have routinely between 12 and an all time high of 24 people who are admitted but have no beds in the hospital. Combine those with the several persons with chest pain that need telemetry and those who need observation it is quite routine that there is only one bed for the ER doctors to see new patients.
If a person comes in who requires isolation, telemetry, or observation then the person in that bet is usually relegated to the hallway. It might be with a portable monitor but not optimal to say the least.
We have currently opened a 10-bed Consultants area that is open between 11 am and midnight but it has become necessary to use this for overflow.
This also means that persons who have a bed requested on the wards but not one available will be wheeled down the hall at 1100 and then wheeled back to the ER at midnight. This is disruptive to the patients and causes challenges in-patient tracking. This consultant’s area now means that
specialists have increased their acceptance of patients that they are seeing in the ER whether they have beds for them in the hospital or not.
Yesterday (Monday) the Manager of Nursing wrote a letter to the Health Regions Senior Management Team outlining the concerns above. It has been posted in the ER behind the Triage Desk for all staff to read so I hardly think it is secret or is only for restricted access.
The shortage of emergency beds isn’t even addressed in the recently released Fraser Institute study of hospital wait times, showing Saskatchewan still trailing all other provinces.
Among the provinces, Ontario achieved the shortest total wait (16.3 weeks), with Manitoba (16.6 weeks) and Alberta (16.8 weeks) next shortest.
Saskatchewan, despite a dramatic 7.8 week reduction in the total waiting time, has the longest total wait in 2005 (25.5 weeks). The next longest waits were found in New Brunswick (24.5 weeks) and Newfoundland (22.3 weeks).
Saskatchewan’s Minister of Health, John T. Nilson (whose title is logically awaiting revision to Minister of Sickness And Dying, now that Graham Addley has sworn in the newly created* portfolio of “Minister of Healthy Living Services”), argued with the findings, pointing out that the survey used anecdotal evidence submitted by “disgruntled” doctors. Considering the Fraser Institute claims to have interviewed 34% of the specialists in the province, that suggests that the provincial NDP have a lot of regruntling to do.
Full publication is here.
Hmmmmm…. wouldn’t Tommy double ’em up in those beds? I mean 1 person per bed?..hey we never had that luxury down on the farm…Tommy slept with his brothers til he was in his 20s…only the rich folks get to sleep one per bed…citizens in the state health system can double up for the welfare state…it’s God’s will.
I wonder how Tommy would deal with a pandemic? Probably embrace police enforced quarrantine as easily as he did eugenics.
Right on that one Kate.. this uncivilized wheatfield commie preacher and his ghosts just can’t get dead enough.
Oh god, we sure don’t want an american stype health care system. So lets not even disuss it.
Horny Toad
Paul Martin has FIXED healthcare!!!!
*this moonbat moment brought to you by me*
Since our health care system is critical to our society’s well-being, I would argue that our food supply is SUPER critical. So for the life of me I can’ figure out why we haven’t adopted the same sysetm/model for food production/distribution as we have for healthcare ??
Or maybe the lineups for a loaf of bread or stick of butter that the Russians endured were proof that such a system sucks the big kahuna.
Yet the wingnut brigade embraces and idolizes such a system of lineups, wait lists, non-accountability and union featherbedding.
Maybe they are profiting so well much the current system that they fight so hard to preserve it.
‘Regruntling’, heh, I’ll have to remember that one.
You’d think that driving so many people out of the province, by taxing the job market to oblivion, would leave enough hospital beds available for the remanent too sick to flee.
Just tax more to pay for more beds, dammit — start up the guilt industry, my health care comrades, and get that extra money flying into the hospitals pronto� but only after diverting it through general revenue first! There are plenty of those selfish bed-owning healthy employed bastards out there still living evilly I�m sure on a whopping 50% of their paycheck after all� what we need is punitive tax on LIVING to fund for their grotesque hospital bed-loving greed when they get sick!! I�m shocked that with starving children somewhere in the world that they complain about having only half of their paychecks taken� if they can afford cable TV and still want cable TV in lieu of feeding starving children shame on them! Tax, tax, and more tax to punish them! By the way, how can I expense my golf course membership to the Crown?? And I think we should start up a Ministry of Beds and plant it in Laval� – signed, every liberal-NDP coalition public-trough whore who thinks the system is fine just the way it is.
Why, oh why do people drag up “American style” health care when talking about trying to fix Canada’s broken system? Talk about a virtual boogieman…
First, having worked on both sides of the border, the “American system” ain’t all that horrible as the dippers would have you think. The Fiends of Medicare are always trying to scare the public with the dying in the streets thing so I won’t even go there.
Second, in all the civilized (and not so civilized)world there are a lot of health care systems to study and try to emulate. Or pick the best from several and make our own “new” system? I am tired of hearing that only Canada, Cuba and North Korea don’t allow other options than what the state dictates.
and third, please forget the “two tiered” bullsh*t. Canada has at least two if not more systems already. When was the last time you saw PMPM sitting in a walk-in clinic waiting room?
Finally, does anyone know how much has been spent of studies, commissions and task forces to look into the situation?
Did anybody see the trailer on Neale of an American examination of our system? Supposed to be out in mid 2006.
More than just a trailer, rebarbarian. It’s a 25 minute short that will debut at a film festival in LA this weekend. The full length version of “Dead Meat” will be out next year. Doubt if we will see it on the Passionate Eye.
You can view it online here:
http://onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/
… I seem to remember a certain court ruling by the Supreme Court re fed-style Health Care and breach of public trust because it currently and FACTUALLY prolongs human suffering unnecessarily and KILLS people waiting for hospital space… Why doesn�t Saskatchewan take that by the horns and HELP its citizens??? Today! To use that ruling as a fulcrum to effect urgent changes NOW…What is more important than people�s LIVES here and now to these so-called provincial mandarins and guardians?
Fred said: “Oh god, we sure don’t want an american stype health care system. So lets not even disuss it.”
What? You mean the one our PM uses? The one Chretien used and the one Most Politicians will use because their private insurance will route them there when it finds the public system short on new treatment, Medicines, specialty surgeries and technology?
Pfffft your brain is as dead as Tommy douglas
“Oh god, we sure don’t want an american stype health care system. So lets not even disuss it.”
I think Horny Toad was being sarcastic.
The quote is a mantra, uttered with aggravating frequency and certainty and it drives me nuts.
First, who is “we”? If whoever says this was to replace “we” with “I”, the statement becomes accurate. As Kate says on the frontpage, “You don’t speak for me.”
Second, what exactly is meant by “American-style healthcare”? The lack of a single payer unless you’re old, poor or illegal? Their outcomes? Their lack of waiting lists? What?
Third, why can’t we discuss it? Anyone with half a brain can see that the present system does not work and can not work. What’s wrong with talking about alternatives?
Fourth, why is the only possible alternative (that can’t be discussed) American? Why not Albanian through to Zimbabwean? Every country on the planet has sick people and every country has found ways of treating them, some better than others. What on earth is wrong with looking at other countries’ healthcare and stealing every good idea we find? Or is the ideology that all must suffer equally more important than the actual suffering?
Of course duplicitous citizen-killing ideology and fanatical memorization and recitation and dogmatic repetition of it are more important than someone’s illness because Saskatchewan doesn’t have many celebrities: lives MUST be sacrificed for the memory of Tommy Douglas… aspiring to services any higher than the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR is EVIL � The god Tommy Douglas said it once� a while back… and people were never wrong back then. Now let�s all say it together people and please stop complaining about dying and suck it up� our life is less important than the lowest common denominator� freedom of choice is bad� having options are bad� even if it means killing you to prove it.
Also, it’s not like the Liberals can get any votes in Saskatchewan … and killing off non-liberal voters isn’t high on the priority list for the feds to get all up in arms about I see. They’d rather get all wet over a visit from Bono any day of the week than trifle with a campaign promise as so obviously marginal as “FIXING HEALTHCARE”…
Misc. side rant – Typical myopic naval gazing Ontario anti-American anti-west liberal: How dare the Americans stop a genocidal American like Saddam! – coochy coo poor misunderstand totalitarian megalomaniac – but somehow Liberal corruption is much more preferable to the “scary” NON-Genocidal Stephen Harper. Gee… you would rather defend genocide than vote conservative in the face of all of the corruption in Ottawa… aren’t you special, precious? Brainwashed leftist control freak brats�
er… I meant maniac, not American.. re Saddam…need to increase the font size on my PC to see what I’m ranting about I guess. Apologies.
Meurault: Good catch on the freudian slip!
Kathryn: Exactly my point above, lets have a look at who is in the top healthcare countries out in the world and see how it is done. Haven’t looked for it for a while but the Calgary Herald wrote a series on just that several years ago (at least 4). They visited several European countries and saw a lot of inovation. Nobody dying in the streets either. I never heard anyone refer to it after though. To pick up that political football was sheer political suicide at the time. It probably still is as you can tell when Ralph mentioned a third option.
“The US must have the best medical care system because thay have the best Doctor-Nurse-EMT-TV-shows!”
The above statement makes as much sense as it does to bitch about American-Style-Healthcare!
The only way to cure the problems with health care in Canada is to get rid of the Liberals.
Meursault:
Bono had lunch at the White House with the chimp in chief today.
With wait lists trending downwards and:
“Coupled with the Globe’s recent poll that places the Liberals comfortably ahead of the Conservative Party, and poised to gain a majority of seats in the House of Commons, it looks like Martin has played his cards perfectly. His party will have plenty of time after the Gomery report comes out to soften the damage, the Guit� and Brault trials will be taking place well after a spring election, and the PM has been virtually cleared of any involvement in the scandal.”
Maisonneuve Magazine Oct. 19, 2005
It would be nice if Lord Bono would have tea with the African dictators instead to tell them to stop funneling the monies given to them by our governments out of our wallets into their armies… the money never gets to the people who need it and he has the gall to patronize us into giving more. lovely…but at least our dictator feels grand about hobnobbing with him like a groupie to this condescending prat. It all feels too much like Amnesty International accusing us of abusing human rights… because we like to take it and so happy to be recognized by anyone… woohoo… a non-elected dope smoking Irish poet is in charge of our treasury and foreign policy. Can it get better than this?
Buzz Hargrove waiting time: 24.0 hours.
I am studying in the US and had to return home to try and get some care for a pinched nerve. My student insurance wouldnt cover anything and I was in pain. After seeing three different doctors, I refuse to go back to Canada. The first told me he graduated last in his med school class, the second ate his lunch while he examined me and the third gave me a 10 minute lecture on why Canadian health care is the worst in the world, and then told me to take some Tylenol.
Sign me up for American style care anytime. I saw the Doctor today and have an MRI tomorrow. Waiting months and months in Canada to end up with permanent nerve damage is not worth it.
We need choice in Canadian health care delivery.
Ralph Klein has decided to wait until after the federal election to announce sweeping new changes to health care in Alberta. Rumours have it that these reforms will include the opportunity for Albertans to purchase private insurance for non-emergency proceedures like hip replacements. (Wish I could have had insurance when I blew my left ACL five years ago-if that ever happens again, I’ll be on the first Westjet flight to San Diego to the private clinic!)
Klein said the only people that will have a problem with his changes will be the Raging Grannies and Friends of Medicare. (Both groups are closet socialists and card carrying members of the Tommy Douglas fan club, btw.) Perhaps they’ll hire Keifer and Donald Southerland to attend their inevitable shout-fests at the Edmonton legislature in the spring!
I can’t wait to see the crocodile tears that will be spraying from the eye sockets of NDP crybaby leader Brian Mason and the condescending scaremongering pap from Liberal elitist Kevin Taft!
It will be just like Kleins massive cuts back when he first took power. All the nurses, teachers and overpaid/underworked government clerks will be moaning “we didn’t think Ralph was serious” I love it!
The icing on the cake is the fact that Paul Martin claims to have won the last election by being the “Medicare Messiah”. In actual fact, all he did was slam Alberta and instill fear in the minds of the sheep in Ontario. Now that Paulie has “saved health care” (notwithstanding hospital waiting lists remain relatively unchanged) he can’t run on that platform anymore. He’s banking on Gomery declaring him “Mr. Clean” even though the morning news continues to bring the latest spending scandal du jour (scandals under HIS watch)!
Gotta love when a Liberal is backed into a corner! I’m still not confident the Conservatives will form government, let alone a razor thin minority, thanks largely to the Liberal friendly press. With the antics of CTV lately, I wonder why they haven’t taken out full page ads in national newspapers declaring Paulie the new millenium Jesus)
I pray that Klein has found the antidote to his “testiclus shrinkious disorder” vis a vis his all talk, no action with respect to western alienation and upcomming theft of Alberta’s resourses.
I don’t know who I’d personally pick as his replacement when he finally does retire. There’s been talk of Jim Dinning returning, but he’s too “metrosexual” for me and spent too much time sitting on boards of directors the past ten years. He’s a smart cookie, but I think we need a real hard ass next time around. Vegreville area farmer and MLA Ed Stalmach’s name has been floating around, but he is relatively unknown.
Any ideas for a modern day General Patton with provincial political aspirations out there? Time’s a wasting!
Ted Morton’s my man.
Ted Morton is the man for the job. Can he win the leadership of the party?
Ted Morton here also although it’s unlikely Albertans will have the gonads to vote him in, he talks very tough and I believe he means to follow through if given the chance.
Kanadienkyle must be a pussy to NOT want permanent nerve damage. I mean, it MUST be un-Canadian to NOT want to suffer for Canada’s Health Care System. It must be all that time spent in the States that makes him so unpatriotic.Those Yanks must have a “sensibility” ray gun they used on him.Canada Customs should confiscate it the next time he returns to Canada!
(KK. Get well soon in the land of the free to choose)
Just saw “Dead Meat” and I can guarrantee you that they won’t be getting any National Film Board or Canadian Arts Council funding. Mickey Moore probably will brand it a documentary travesty.
Now if Joe & Jane Sixpack could see around their Liberano$ rose coloured glasses then maybe Canadians could have a real and honest look at what is wrong and not be afraid to fix what is so clearly broken.
Communist/ Socialist Paradise in North Korea? Hell on earth, it is. Testimony here. BTW, North Korea and Canada have statist free health care; make that, free deathcare; and free tattoo removal.Cut off with scissors & scalpel; no painkillers; just killers. Oh, yes: sex today; none tomorrow. It’s free. >>>>>
Army Deserter Recalls Abuse in N. Korea
Posted by Enchante
On 10/20/2005 4:59:35 PM PDT � 27 replies � 586+ views
Yahoo News ^ | 10/20/05 | AP staff
RALEIGH, N.C. – A U.S. Army deserter who spent decades in North Korea says his communist keepers abused him and controlled every aspect of his life, down to telling him how often to have sex. “It was the worst mistake anyone ever made,” Charles Jenkins said. “In words, I cannot express the feelings I have towards North Korea, the harassment I got, the hard life.” In an interview airing Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes, Jenkins said he was given no painkillers when a tattoo on his forearm that read “U.S. Army” was cut off with a scalpel and scissors. ……….. >>> more
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506295/posts
Dead Meat
Browsing the blogs while on call tonight, and came across an interesting post at small dead animals (a Canadian blogger). The post delineates ongoing problems with the Canadian health care system — remember, that’s the one that Teddy Kennedy and Ho…
Just got back from Mexico (just got out before the current hurricane business). Happened to get swimmer’s ear down there, and had to visit a medical clinic. Bettter, more thorough examination and care than I’ve ever received for similar ailments here. And all for $120 (antibiotics & ear drops included).
A terrible thing, don’t you think? What the HELL would happen if the average Canadian was allowed to do something like THIS in his home country?!?
The next thing you know, we’d be dumping dying invalids into the streets…..!!!