I honestly think we are seeing a global decline in cognitive reasoning abilities.....AKA too many attorneys......

In the old days two burley orderlies, and maybe a cleaning guy, would rescue the "patient". But now we have "workplace health and safety" zealots, unions, and a resultant change in work ethic that places the workers rather than the clients at the top of the pyramid.

Rules are rules. That way nobody has to think or take responsibility. Observers of the socialist utopias will recognize this as a key tenet.

>"spotted a man in a hospital gown lying on the ground outside emergency at City Hospital Monday morning."

This is why my why and I have several sets of scrubs we bought at Marks Work Warehouse.
Whenever we have to visit the hospital we put them on and the hospital staff has an instant empathological connection to us because we look like them instead of patients.

Scrubs are easy to don and remove and hospital staff react differently than the indifference or low key hostility they show patients in hospital gowns or street clothes.

Fire. Them. All.
Patti Simonar would be a good place to start.

This patient recognized that hospitals are the last place you want to be when you're sick and couldn't quite make a full getaway.

This is worse than y'all think.

The most likely reason he was outside in the first place was to have a smoke. Hospitals being no-smoking, you have to physically leave the building and stand x number of feet away before you can light up a gasper. Cops will come if you disobey. Really.

That is why you see people outside in wheelchairs or standing with IV bags on stands, in the winter, in the rain, whatever. Sometimes they pass out, bleed, have heart attacks, whatever.

BTW, the "lack of mobile equipment" line is a -lie-. The ER has gurneys. This is about "procedure", "regulations", and "official policy" in a big company/union environment. Nurses don't go outside, ambulance guys go outside. Union rules.

And yes, they would let him die waiting for the ambulance. The security guards probably told them to f- off and went to get him anyway. Probably got told off by their company management too, but since security guard is such a crap job with such crap pay they don't care and do what they want no matter what the management says. "Whudderya gonna do, fire me? Boo hoo!"

This is what happens when you have not enough people doing too much work for a lippy public with an entitlement mentality, plus a union. I could tell you stories...

I'm a Federal prison guard, and we HAVE to give first aid to inmates who appear to be in medical distress/unconscious while we wait for EMS. Interesting that law-abiding members of the public aren't afforded the same. I would lose my job if an investigation found that I had not carried out my responsibilities, I can only assume that employees of the Saskatoon Health Region are held to a different standard.

The quintessence of the bureaucrat: avoid risk.

Decision making invariably demands making judgement calls, for which one becomes accountable. In private industry (until lately), the higher pay for executives reflected their accountability for making subjective decisions. Decision making based on objective measurements can be automated, and is therefore less valuable.

In the public sector, we see endless, silly attempts to render the subjective into some kind of objective framework - so that all can hide - dare not make any subjective decision! You could be wrong! And Lord knows there is another bureaucratic zombie lurking just behind you ready to take your place on the fully-indexed pension gravy train. This is what happens when merit - the ability to make good subjective decisions and take risks - is replaced with seniority.

Check out the state of some of the public employee union pension funds in California of late if you wish to see where this lunacy takes us.

But then, if you think about it, the last thing you want is for one of our 'professional' journalists to take issue with a decision, and embarass the government.

The calculus of risk taking in the public sector driven by the 'professional' journalists reduces us to these ridiculous scenarios.

Politicians might soon wake up, though, realize that the 'professional' journalists have become silly paper tigers, and ignore them. They are becoming more and more toothless - by pulling out their own teeth. Not waiting for the asteroid - and not waiting for the dentureist either.

"I could tell you stories..."
~The Phantom

Stories are good, I'd like some, please.

I wonder what the cost is for a 10' ambulance run? Okay, a 3 meter run. Poor bugger would probably die at Admitting anyhow as they would be confused since the patient was already admitted. Personally, I'd rather end up in County General Hospital or St. Elsewhere, where the staff actually go outside to meet the meatwagons.

I can't wait for this revolutionary thinking in the efficient rationing of health care by government bureaucracy to be fully implemented here in the US.

This is not at all surprising.

The Saskatoon Health Region is a gigantic, festering sore rife with mismanagement, waste, bureaucracy and turf protection. With problems too numerous to mention, the head of the Heath Region spends her time personally checking the grounds to ensure that no one is sneaking a cigarette. I suppose that's easier than dealing with real issues.

If this poor guy lying on the ground had been smoking, security would have been all over him like hyenas on a wounded wildebeest.

The Health Region needs an enema starting from the top down.

All the onlookers had to do was to go into the hospital and yell, "There's a member of the NDP party who's outside and he's OD'd on capitalism!!" The entire staff would have been there in ten seconds!

Reality is even worse. Hospital workers must call 911 if someone loses consciousness INSIDE the hospital. I know, I've be working in Canadian hospitals for 18 years and this situation happened to me once.

The editor of the Star-Phoenix is going to do the same with this story as the editor of the CBC, and most major media sources. They will "weed out" the readers comments, especially those where the person may have seen a similar incident in another hosptal. Thanks to Kate, John Gormely and others who have allowed us free speech, the truth may someday be known.

PS: A friend of mine phoned me from Saskatoon this morning. He posted a comment on the Star-Phoenix's online edition over an hour ago, with regards to this story. I looked ten minutes ago, it's still not posted. The "thought police" must be at coffee!!

This is why Canada's health care system has slipped to number 26 in the world. It will only get worse unless the socialist stranglehold is broken.

Can't wait for a book coming out in the fall with an American's view of our health care as he processes what they may be in for in the States.
Saw the other day on one channel that many more people can be saved in Canada if we used a drug availble elsewhere for a certain cancer for men but it is too expensive here. The States mortality rate is way down because they use it.
Also why is it that so many people wait in Regina for hip/knee, etc. surgery when people say they could go to Moose Jaw and get it done almost immediately instead of waiting 18 months or so. Seems to me when you put a senior in their 70's or 80's on that 18 month list the chance of surviving the long wait would be a problem.

Seems to me when you put a senior in their 70's or 80's on that 18 month list the chance of surviving the long wait would be a problem.
Posted by: John at April 21, 2009 1:33 PM

Actually,it's not a problem John. This is the way socialists "cut down" on waiting times.After all,multi-millionaire hockey players contribute WAY more to society,then some 70 something person on a pension. That's why the hockey players get IMMEDIATE attention. Oh wait. No they don't!We don't have a two-tier system /sarc.

We need more taxes to pay for all the medical care.

My father was taken to the hospital where he lives and waited on a gurney for nearly thirty hours before being moved to a room and then ignored some more.
This is what we pay for. These restraints made by "policy", finances and just plain meanness cripple us all.

Couple of weeks ago my better half became violently ill whereupon we made a beeline for the emergency room. The place was abandoned and we were quickly shuttled into an examination room. Since my husband was in extreme pain, they took blood panels, including liver and kidney function, urine analysis and two CT scans. This was all accomplished within an hour and a half taking place at the larger of two hospitals located in a small burg of just under 60,000 people. There is a larger city across the river with no end of similar high-tech, well staffed hospitals and associations.

The ER MD then interpreted the tests, indicating everything had come back "normal." Since they didn't know what the problem was, he was to make an appointment to see his primary, done the next day, and if the condition worsened to return to emergency. They gave him a prescription for a powerful narcotic and sent him on his way. That is the very good news and why I love the current U. S. medical system. We work for the same company but he is union and has a slightly better medical program than I, in management.

Now the bad news. The bills, all paid, just turned up at the house. The tests and time with the doctor totaled just over $10K in expense with most, about $8K going for the CT scans. [Can't wait to see the bill for the subsequent MRI scans taken that same week.] Is it possible to obtain this kind of care from a nationalized system? Probably not. Is it possible to develop a cost sensitive, sustainable, broad-based program building from the current system? I don't know. $4Gs each for CT scans. Where do we go from here?

I wonder if this story will raise eyebrows? Last summer my 85 yr old father suddenly seizured and was taken to emerg. Diagnosis: brain tumor. He was transferred in the middle of the night to a tertiary care hospital. Dad, being quick witted and funny charmed everyone who came to assess him. A couple of days later, again in the middle of the night, he was on the operating table in the hands of a skilled young neurosurgeon.

When the family was debriefed the following morning we were told (very sincerely) something to the effect that Dad received all the resources and was operated on despite his elderly age because he was a “sharp old guy”. I was shaken to the core, I spent 30 years as an RN caring for adults in hospitals, nursing homes and home care. I have known a lot of “not sharp” patients. Never, ever, ever did I ever get the idea that these judgments were being made. I left health care in 2000. Is this what it’s become?

Dad by the way is doing great, living independently and fully engaged in life. God forbid he’d been quiet, depressed, or just plain grumpy!

$4Gs each for CT scans. Where do we go from here?

You could go to a completely socialized system like we have in Canada where a CT scan costs you nothing, but it doesn't matter because you can't get one within a year anyway.

Our "universality" socialists in Canada are happy to eat sawdust, so long as nobody else can buy a steak.

Anna Mac, US hospitals "pad" the bills of people with insurance to cover the deadbeats who show up in Emerg. They steal the money, basically.

Otherwise they get zip/zero/nada when the drunks show up on Friday night all smashed up, and they have to take them and stabilize them before shipping them off to the county hospital.

You want to know what a CT scan actually costs, ask a veterinarian. Horses and pets get all these procedures and scans too. In Canada they get them a hell of a lot faster than I do if I'm sick. Pet health insurance is WAY cheaper than yours too.

Oz asked: "Stories are good, I'd like some, please." Patient confidentiality, Oz. But if I might make it hazy enough to pass legal muster, let's just say sometimes the staff of a hospital somewhere in Canada could forget about a patient in a back room in the ER. For a long time. Like, you wouldn't normally measure that length of time in hours.

Bottom line, don't let people you care about stay alone in the emergency room, and if they haven't been seen to in a few hours, -very-frickin'-politely- raise all manner of hell. Politely, because if you say a swear word they will call the cops and your @ss will be going to the cooler overnight. Have your lawyer call the hospital if you can't get anything to happen. Not the ER, call the upper management.

Don't do that for a hang nail.

I put zero stock in those phony "surveys" of healthcare systems by country. If you look into the guidlines, there is usually extra credit given to systems that provide equal access to all, even if it is lousy. That will tend to make the US look bad, since people with good insurance here do get more care. I would take measures of longevity with a large grain of salt, too, because there are so many factors influencing that besides just the local health care system.
Manny, you are kidding about the 911 call, right?

... CT scan actually costs, ask a veterinarian. Horses and pets get all these procedures...

I can also attest to that. While living in PEI, of all places, my dog had that procedure at the VetMedicine clinic. The dog was totally miffed though when she overheard a technician referring to it as a CAT-scan.

Frightening.

This is the sort of stuff you only expect to read about in a Stephen King novel.

$4Gs each for CT scans??

Last year I needed some diagnostics. I wouldn't wait for the tests in Saskatchewan, and went to Edmonton for the imaging.

I attended a private clinic and within 48 hours of first calling the clinic, I had a bone scan, a lumbar x-ray, and a high res abdominal CT scan. I was able to see the radiologist in the same day as the tests. The Saskatchewan Provincial Health Plan covered everything but the CT scan. The total cost to me was $750.

Not surprised about this at all. My son broke his leg moto crossing. His friends got him in the back of the truck and took him to the hospital. The hospital staff would not help transfer him into the facility as their insurance would not cover it. They had to call 911, get the ambulance, and the ambulance attendence came and transferred him from the parking lot to the inside of the hospital, a distance of about 15 feet.

Forgot to say I live in a small community, so the ambulance personel had to be called from their other jobs to the ambulance, some of them in the next community, leaving my son waiting in the back of the truck for close to an hour.

I heard a pundit phrase something very concisely. Basically he said in the Canadian Healthcare system "patients are an expense". If money followed the patient perhaps they would be considered revenue or customers. If we had competition; hospitals might try to raise the bar to attract customers from other hospitals to increase profits(yeah I said it!), and maybe give out XMAS bonuses.(just kidding, I meant Christmas bonus)

Here in Alberta we have a group called"Friends of Medicare". From my vantage point they should be renamed 'friends of the nurse's union'.Their mission is to improve health care without changing anything.

NettieOnTheNet

Their attitude is sickening.

Ontario is severely messed up as well, I myself have to wait two more months for an appointment with a specialist for blood in the urine.

Inquired at a private clinic and was told I can get seen, tested and a referral within a week.
So tomorrow we're going to the private clinic.

I agree with what Glasnost wrote early in this discussion about the role that WHS and union zealots may have had on workers mentality. But these "waiting in the driveway" stories make me wonder if these policies are desgned to force us to use ambulances. It's unbelievable! Some kind of justification for having an ambulance service? I've never heard anyone question the need for trained EMT's, so why the pressure to "make work" or grow the number of calls tally.

My wife's cousin was beaten at a Halloween party last year, in Ottawa. They did a CT and found an aneurysm. So, being that a weekend was coming up, they scheduled the procedure for Monday, as they don't staff the operating rooms on weekends.

Come Sunday, Michael was sitting in a wheelchair outside having a smoke, talking to a visitor, and he fell dead from the aneurysm. He was 22 years old with a kid on the way. Way to go socialized medicine.

It is a litigation fear I think. If I saw someone doing something that shouldn't be done I was informed I would be legally accountable if something went bad. My reply was I have transitory vision problems and hire smarter people. Most MD's will not give first aid if there is any choice at all. The reason is they are not covered under the Good Samaritan Act. What the answer should have been was we cannot do it but we cannot prevent you from dragging his arse through the door. At that point it is their responsibility.

That's probably a union edict.

I read this story to my wife, a qualified nurse, and she said right off the bat that it was because of the insurance thingy.
Like some people are more prone to suing for no good reason nowadays.

At one place she worked, they were instructed to call for help even if the guy was having a heart attack right in the hospital parking lot.
(And that is a true story for her)

So where the Good Samaritans fit in this type of case?

As an RN, I would recommend the family SUE everyone right from the Saskatoon Health Region down to the nurse in charge of this patient.

The standard of health care in Sask. is so atrocious that the only way to effect change is for every patient/family to sue for every incident.

I would also strongly recommend the Health Region be run as a business with profit and efficiency in mind. Wouldn't hurt to bring in an axeman and gut the several top levels of useless bureaucracy.

If I understand the Good Samaritan Act correctly you are excluded from prosecution if you are acting in good faith. Medical people are trained so they are held to a higher standard than some guy that may screw up but thinks he is acting for the recipient's interests. If you have first aid you are allowed to make mistakes that can have negative outcomes. For an MD there is not a lot they can do besides first aid but are more accountable for the outcome.

Who can remember the days when nurses wore uniforms, and the cap told you where they graduated from. Who can remember the nightly backrubs, snacks between meals, TLC from the hospital staff. Unions ruined health care, just like they have ruined so many professions and mfging jobs. Of course lawyers have done their share to ruin things. Problem started when nursing schools were closed and universities and community colleges took over. Special interest groups were upset that religious hospitals got funding and it had to be stopped.

The other thing is only give your first name if you give first aid. A lot of times the police will not ask for your name to protect you at accident scenes. They are just happy someone is doing it.

This is not news. When I was an intern in Hamilton some 15 years ago, a patient collapsed on the front steps of the hospital on the mountain. No one was allowed to administer aid, and an ambulance was called. Due to bed crowding, the ambulance took him about 10 miles away, down "the mountain" to another hospital ER.

Common sense was the first casualty of socialized medicine.

tubodoc, I love the way you don't name the hospital. These days they send you to the ER that has the smallest number of ambulances sitting in the parking lot with patients in them.

I work in a hospital, and while the unions cause a LOT of problems, this particular absurdity is due to the litigation avoidance. This policy is in effect in Alberta hospitals, though at the hospital I work at many of us (nurses and docs included) ignore it with gusto. I'm not technically clinical staff, but you bet your ass that I render first aid when patients are discovered outside of clinical areas. That said, we're a small town hospital far from the influence of big brother, so we tend to view policy as a guideline rather than a commandment.

I love the fact this happened in Saskatchewan. I wish Tommy "Not Dead Enough" Douglas was still alive to witness this.

What the hell does this have to do with Tommy Douglas?

Does this somehow imply that this happened because of socialized healthcare, and not the result of a bloated beauracracy?

Perhaps we'd like to revert to a privatized health-care system like the US, where (shocker!) the same stuff happens all the time.

Instead of just demonizing different types of health care (socialized or private), it would be a lot more useful to offer solutions so this sort of thing never has to happen.

Somebody pass Joe some more koolaid. In Canada your dog can get a MRI faster than you can. In Canada, you can die in the waiting room in Emerg and it will only take a day or two for someone to notice. This whole social medicine was started and championed by TC Douglas and in the typical socialist way, only changes and improvements to the system come from more taxpayer dollars and not innovation.

As long as the patient is considered a burden on the system and not an asset then we will continue to get mediocre healthcare. Remember, when you average out the quality of healthcare so everyone gets the same then nobody gets the best. Story the other day about a couple here in Halifax that had to go out of country to get treatment that couldn't be provided here. She got the care but everything else associated with her treatments were on her dime, and guess what? they are busted broke. Ever have a loved one seen some procedure or test that the locals couldn't do? No problem, the government will give you a bus ticket for a 12 hour ride and enough money to buy a couple of those stale sandwiches they flog at the depot. And now that you have waited so long for that hip they tell you you are too old to get any use out of it because your system has deteriorated too much. Lowest common denominator folks.

The quintessence of the bureaucrat: avoid risk.

The goal of the interlopers is to turn us all into bureaucrats; uncaring, fillers-out-of-forms. Resist!