Maybe not taking revenge is a failed policy after all?

First! Kate for PM!

(And Cjunk too, I s'pose...)

They can call it Obamacare when it is inflicted upon them.

There's a lot wrong with our medical system and part is the fact it's perceived as free which has rendered it free of good service.

Going to emergency rooms has become a service to GP's as well, they tell their patients to go to emergency facilities at the various hospitals when they are not available outside "business hours" in their offices.

At first I was pretty shocked, but once I heard that an investigation was going to be conducted I was just completely relieved. I mean, once an investigation happens the problem goes away and all the people rejoice!

Did you see that dude in the comments? Lee who visited the ER in Alberta and got out in 10min? When was that? All my ER visits were hours upon hours.

@Aaron: not taking revenge is ALWAYS a failed policy.

So the executive director who's heading up the investigation wonders "was she [Hanrahan] triaged appropriately?".

Gee, do you think?!

Well after reading her tragedy i can kinda relate my bro's wife has misscarried twice . that is twice i missed being an uncle lol.

Anyway it does happen why i have no clue she has two boy's and was tring for two more but didn't happen.

Anyway i read the comment's and it seems canadians or leftist's love socialised medicine and health care why i have no clue i think it sucks , i have neevr ever been happy waiting for anything and if i have blood spewing from my crotch and i go to a hospital witch i help build ,and staff i don't want to wait .

Here is a good one two of my friends wives work at the foothills hospital,and the peter laugheid here in calgary alberta canada many time and on many occasions they have expressed sever dis satisfaction with there job's why?

They are told to wait as are most other people in the hospital who are resposible for providing care they are told to take there time and work slowly not so they don't mess up but so they cause wait times to be longer and so that they can bitch to the govornment for more funding to reduce wait times. When i was at there house for an anniversary bar be que last year and i herd this i was shocked and pissed .

The unions are sh!t ,not the workers i think nurses and doctors just want to do there job's but get caught in the political sh!t knowingly or unknowingly it is sad and unfortunate not to mention nurses make over 40/hour if that is not a good wage then i am out to lunch that is over 80k/year i am an aircraft engineer i am building the new twin otter 400 series i have ten years expierience peoples lives depend on my skill and knowledge and i make 32/hour i work with 50-100 thousand dollar part's where if i drill a #50 hole in the wrong spot the part is ruined and i lose my job .

I think it is time mr.harper looks at a public and a private sytem where they keep each other in check if the private gouges and start's getting to techinical ie. john smith didn't dot his "i" in his last name there for we are terminating his coverage ,we make laws that rpotect the policy holders and hold the insurance companies to a moral account if someone has been a private health care payer for a decade with out hesitation or any mistakes at all and they miss one payment we make sure they still get coverage we have to make sure the private health care providers don't get to greedy.Becasue people will just go to the public system

and the public health care system, well it will be forced to perform at a higher standard and provide better service or people will just go to the private system and that is that unions will be forced to stop bulling the govornment and we will actually have some good competition on both sides and who reaps the benifit's the public and private health care users .....i just haven't figured out how to pay a public system separate from a private ..like how does john smith a private health care holder get away from not paying into a public system witch he doesn't use ...i know a birth certificate a two peices of photo i.d. and a social inssurance card so only legal citizens of canada can use the public system and if any fraudsters try to use the public with out paying they won't be able to becasue you must provide the identification to use it and we have an open line of communication between the private and public system's . MR.HARPER ARE YOU LISTENING?

I know it aint perfect but it is a start.

Paul in calgary

A key factor is the removal of the direct interaction between Server and Consumer, between nurse and patient. The govt has moved into this direct relation - and this means that the nurse or doctor is responsible to the govt. Not the patient.

As Paul in Calgary points out, this has even led to the union asking its nurses/staff to 'go slowly' so that wait times increase..to provide fodder to asking for more money from the govt.

Since the staff are linked directly to the govt and unions and not to the patients, we see that it is difficult for them to serve those patients with any accountability. After all, they get paid no matter how many people they see.

I was lucky. I had my heart attack on a Sunday afternoon. The ER was all but empty.

After they got me stabilized and ready for the ICU, I asked the doc about the tumbleweeds in the ER. Not what I expected at all. His answer? It was Sunday. Canadians don't get sick on Sundays. Don't want to waste a perfectly good weekend day.

I saw proof to that on the following Tuesday when I had to pass through the ER to get my cath done. The place was packed to the rafters.

Found something odd there in the Sunday. According to their regs, the paramedics that brought me in were required to stay with me until I was sent to the expensive care unit. There was always a doctor and a nurse in the room with me until I went up stairs. Why would these highly trained medics be required to hang around?

@ET

I cannot stress to you enough the disapointment these two ladies (my personal friends) feel and they are between a rock and a hard place i am sure you can picture the scenerio 40+/hr doing almost nothing at the request of there supirior's

or maing a moral stand and heading down a road full of confusion ,fear,so on and so forth one has been considering quitting but she say's it won't do anything ratting won't do anything either as the media,union's and so on are on board so and these are just two nurses i wish i could give then ames of the people who told them to make people wait and to work slowly of course it was under the guise of notm aking mistakes but my friends said that even going slow and cautiously they can still perform almost at twice the speed . Again these ladies are in a tough spot as they make more than there husbands and kids are getting old enough to take care of themselves so take another job in another line of work making a 1/4 of what she makes? she feels bad she loves doing her work but she hates all the rest everything the union dues the political crap ,and people alway's pat her on the back say your a good person doing a good job ....ha ha she laugh's and say's if you only knew .

It really is not funny , she admit's to getting an absorbinate amount of money she said most nurses do it becasue they liek to help people same with doctor's she said the money is gravy she would be happy if she wasn't paid as much but knew that she could work to her potential and not be scoffed at for doing so by the union thug's that she work's with cause she said there are nurses who don't give a sh!t about the people they just want the money and want to do as little as possible to get it.

Read both of my stament's atlantic jim

Paul in calgary and also paul in calgary for the @et post as well .

Paul in calgary ..LMAO

Something can only last as long as folks believe it can. Health-care here is degrading by the day . Both in material & personnel. In a relative world empathy is contra survival.
JMO

From the article: "Handrahan, who works at a vet clinic, said she has never seen an animal being treated like she was treated at the province’s largest referral hospital."

That's because there is no public health care for animals. Sad isn't it when the evil private health care system she works in is more humane than the "compassionate" public monopoly...

Seems to me ya have to seduce the triage nurse or get noisy enough they call security.
Ya get better pain meds with seduction....
I don't make the rules I just plays the game....

As she frequently (but not always) does, ET hits the nail right on the head. "key factor is the removal of the direct interaction between Server and Consumer".
I don't understand why we can't have a system where the dollars follow the patient, and patients become revenue, not cost, to the health provider. This would allow for competition, innovation and all the good things that the competitive market provide without the bankruptcies, losing one's home because they're sick and all the potential downsides of having a purely private system.
There are always excuses provided as to why this can't be done, but I think if the will was there, the roadblocks could be knocked down, one by one.

IMHO...

The health-care systems in Canada and the US might be very different, but they (and probably the systems in other places) share two things in common that make them unworkable:

1) Governments mandate that insurance (whether private or public) must cover ALL treatments. Cripes even Tommy Douglas (originally) believed that socialized medicine should only be for catastrophic cases requiring hospitalization.

2) Whenever you insert a third party payer in between the producer/provider and the consumer/recipient, you will create a situation that can only go to hell.

Payer and provider must be able to look each other in the eye as the payer writes the check. Anything else creates a situation where neither party will be motivated to have the other side's interest at heart.

Some of my colleagues from old Soviet Bloc nations tell me that, in some regions, by the 1980's hospital staff were "accidentally overdosing" between a fifth and a third of their patients as a kind of last resort to control workload and waiting times (all money and resources by that time had been "otherwise allocated").

One recently commented to me that Canadian healthcare today is where Russia was circa 1965. He offered to bet me that, within 20 years, if Canada doesn't shake its love affair with its health-care beauracracy, we'll be in the same boat. Could the recent political talk about legalizing euthanasia be related?

I don't want to believe it...but I didn't take the bet.

The folks who lose their homes/go bankrupt/etc because poor or no medical insurance would have lost their homes et all from a house fire/car accident or something else BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T BUY INSURANCE!
I am, and always have been, insured against fire. theft and accident. When I was an apartment tenant I made certain I had a good tenants package to insure me against my foolishness and, more important, the foolishness of my neighbours. I pay a great whack of money to insure my house and contents. My automobile has been insured against theft and damage when new and always against 3rd party liability. I still make damn sure I have dental coverage (Mum & Dad made certain I had good teeth and their ghosts will come back to haunt me if I let the choppers go!)
Catostrophic medical insurance (i.e. the type which does not pay for your annual physical but will pay for 10 weeks in hospital after a heart attack or car accident) is surprisingly cheap; much less than the 50% of provincial taxes we must pay here for BC MSP plus the monthly premium.
My point is some folks like to gamble. The money saved by NOT buying medical insurance does add up but you run the risk of losing all your wealth.

I am an ER Physician.

Unfortunately this kind of thing happens in the U.S. as well. I assure you. (Note I am not in favor of an all public system, just talking reality).

I am not directly involved with this woman's case, but there is nothing any physician can do about preventing a miscarriage at 9 weeks, bleeding to death is very unlikely at that stage, and finally the treatment is basically to let the products of conception deliver (along with a few other things to do). Indeed some women just deliver it at home and will either bring in the placenta to their OBGYN if it is required for genetic/pathology in cases of multiple miscarriages.

There are basically two types of funding systems all physicians face here. A fee for service, and a contract. One thing I have noticed in my time, is that the physicians who get paid by each case (fee for service) work like animals to make as much as they can. Consequently more patients are seen. In comparison physicians who have a contract to work a set number of hours do not work as hard. I cannot comment on quality of treatment. This is basic economics. Can you guess which service I prefer? (Its the fee for service one).

Still at times the ER is disastrously busy. It doesn't matter where it is, here or the U.S. Sometimes it is full of people who really don't need to be there: either because they have no clue that they don't need to be there, they lack a GP, or they simply don't want to wait to see their GP, they want a second opinion or they just have nothing better to do. Sometimes it is full because people are dying. I guarantee you that no matter how bad you think your case is, if you can still think about it then it means that someone else is in worse shape.

People expect a lot out of medicine in this day and age. A lot of the time we cannot provide, medicine just isn't that good. However that being said if people want fast delivery in the ER then things are going to have to change. User fees, the public acceptance of the firing of bureaucrats and bloated unions, less wasted spending on trivial government experiments in social planning, and private medicine.

It's that simple?.

Well put langman .

What do you think of my post's above?

Paul in calgary

Minimum of 3 hours in emergency where I live - last time I was there - last week - it was 8.5 hours and the nature of the "visit" was more of a serious nature than the time I was there that was just a 3 hour wait. I am often called upon to make these hospital trips with my older children and sometimes I drive friends of mine there and wait with them. I'm there at least once every couple of months. I know to bring a pillow and a good book.

One reassuring policy that our one and only hospital has is checking on all patients, including those in the waiting room, every 2 hours - the nurses take vitals and questions are asked to ascertain if there have been changes in your condition. Also, tests and x-rays are done b4 you go into to see the emergency room Doctor who then does not have to make you wait for additional tests, blood work etc., while he/she pops in and out on other patients. By the time one is in an actual emergency room, one has the Doctors complete attention until he/she knows what is wrong and one is treated, released, or admitted.

Last time, I was surprised to see a teenager laying on the emergency room waiting room floor in her pajama's with a pillow under her head reading comics; however, they (her parents were with her) did give up and leave b4 the teenager was seen - they had been there 6 hours b4 we arrived.

@ Paul,

I have heard comments from ED staff like that before. However it really depends on the culture of the ED department.

If you have a boss charge nurse that wants the department moving, and physicians paid fee for service, it can really roll.

I have worked places where I have gone out into the waiting room, seens people there, ordered tests, moved people in and out of the waiting room when their tests are done all in an effort to deliver rapid service.

People will have to accept that they won't get to wait in a bed once they have landed there, that service is going to be quick and to the point, and I'm not going to be able to talk about the weather etc. That being said, they might get home in time to watch American Idol, and Entertainment Tonight's latest expose on Pam Anderson.

The culture of some ED's also has to change too.

@ langman
what's ED?

Paul in calgary

"Health Minister Carolyn Bertram maintains safety is not being compromised at the Charlottetown hospital."

Note how the conditioned reflex in these over paid empty suits is to offer nothing but defensive obvious lies. We are certainly being robbed for the massive cost we pay to run government. If these political class parasites were paid wages reflecting their ineptitude and true arrogant detachment, they'd have to have a second job to eat right.

But this is a dystopian kakistocracy where the detached inept are paid far beyond their worth to society.

A couple of personal things regarding our ER's.
I had to take my wife to the hospital for a very painful...pain? that went from her neck to the top of her head. She was in so much pain that she was on floor trying not to scream. 4 hours later I had had enough. People with no discernible discomforts were pushed through and when I was at the end of my rope, I had to go ballistic to get some attention for her. It didn't seem to help until I met a EMS friend of mine and just like that they got her in. End result, put her on some extreme painkillers and when it wore off, it was a whole nother person. They never did find what caused it.

The other part, and I'm not sure where the fault lies. I was diagnosed with throat cancer in late /03-November. In April the following year I finally saw an oncologist-or the commandant as we affectionately called him. Following that appointment, I waited til July to start some intense treatment finishing in August.

And yes, even though I had some money, it has cost me a house, a job, 2 vehicles and whole lot more so when someone tells me that health care is free I just try to refrain from swearing and say it could be worse because I'm alive but it could also be better had I had other options and could likely have been treated much sooner and possibly kept some of the things I worked so hard to obtain.

/crying over
//thanks for reading

My God... how sickening.
Ask any Canadian and they will tell you how their "universal" system has screwed them over. This is beyond unacceptable. It's maddening.

SOCIALISTS like Universal healthcare, Like Balinda Stronach who gets American top of the line Healthcare when she got sick. She is a prime example of a Liberal Socialist, whats good for her is not at all good for the (taxpayers) of Canada. When my grandmother needed a hip she waited 2 years in Sask. the birthplace of Tommy D. what a fn joke. 2 years of being medicated and in constant pain. Liberals and NDP, get rid of the garbage.

My brother's wife went into the hospital in a mid-central Provincial hospital, 22 weeks pregnant, with pain in her lower right abdomen. She was sent home but ended up back there 6 hours later.

While in her hospital bed, she felt a sharp pain once again in her lower abdomen and informed the nurse as to what she had felt. Over the course of the next 11 HOURS, 5 GP's and 3 surgeons poured over her. She finally went into labour and delivered her baby boy...who died in my brother's hands, as there was nothing they could do to save a baby poisoned from a burst appendix!!!

The hospital was not sued as the medical staff circled the wagons and lied about what had happened, even changing the medical charts. My brother looked at them, while he was waiting during the night, but had no ability to back up any of what he remembers seeing on those charts, it is his word against the medical staffs'.

There were so many of these cases (I believe 5 cases in 3 years) that the families tried a class action lawsuit, but were unable to because of lack of written evidence because of altered medical charts.

Got to love a medical system which cannot be held accountable!!

@ Jim in Calgary:

Your wife's pain was caused by a nerve that distributes over that area of the head. It can get pinched by pressure and cause a nerve pain called "radiculopathy". It is rare but common enough and usually responds well to steroids. Its called occipital neuralgia. The number of CT's I have ordered for this... I agree the pain is bad.

As well I have met a number of patients in our so called free system that cannot afford the medications or the therapy causes so much interference with work that they bankrupt. It is a pack of lies that our system doesn't cause financial difficulties.

@ glacierman:

I once saw a pregnant woman with what I suspected was a appendicitis. The radiologist wouldn't come in to do the ultrasound. Luckily for her, her sister was married to a radiologist who kindly stepped in and did the procedure. This would not have happened in the south due to the fear of lawyers...

Diagnosing appendicitis in pregnancy is extremely difficult. I don't know what happened in her case but it is not an easy diagnosis to make because pain during pregnancy can be due to so many other confounding issues.

Miscarriages happen for a reason; that's not the fault of the health care system.

I've never had any problem with Canada's sick care system, but then I've made staying healthy MY priority. I don't expect the government system to take the place of personal responsibility like so many unhealthy Canadians do.

If you don't like Canada's sick care system then move to the USofA.

@ Paul: ED = Emergency Department. ER is an anachronism.

To all,

I am sure everyone has an anecdotal story about how bad the health care system is, so here is mine (along with an eductational one).

I/we arived in Canada back in 1967, on July long weekend 1968 my dad rolled the car in rural AB, I spent almost all that day in hallway waiting for treatment. Why?, because the senoir Union members had CHOSEN to take a long weekend for their families and the consumer (aka patient) was left with "rookies" for both Drs. and nurses. One broken pelvis later along with an admittance for a week our "free health care" aided in my recovery.

In addition, I graduated high school in 1975 (at age 16) with a Physics 30 class of 35 guys, no girls (that's why I remeber the exact #s), and I don't remember having an issue with class size.

To all our progressive friends, here we are almost 45 years later and not a damn thing has changed; other than the fact unions have become more powerful and whiny.

If money solved all issues, AB, we would be the envy of the world but here we are whereby I can't get a doctor, because mine retired and couldn't give away his practice.

Sorry for the rant but shyte, when will all parties ( both patients and care-givers) be accountable for their actions

langman:
Thanks for that. I'll pass that on and she will be happy that someone is even trying to help explain what happened.

No wonder SDA rocks.

As to the second part of my comment, I hung on tough for 4 years but by then the business contacts in the oil patch dry up and move on-as I am trying to do.

Keep up the good work!

The cynical side of me says they did this to save the expense of trying to save the baby and/or paying for 9 months of maternity care. How horrible; we do treat our animals better than people and I can't wait to be treated with the same stellar care when Obama socialist medicine program is the law of the land.

john galt is a moron and an idiot he makes it seem like canadians are fat lazy unhealthy pieces of garbage and he is the ultimate elite singlwe healthy person in canada that hasn ever been afflicted with any sort of ailment...well go for you and i hope and pray that you remain invinsible to unseen ailment's

you retard.

it is pathetic how fat we are in canada and north america it is sick and discusting the amount of fat people around i will concede that with you john but how about slipping and falling ? is that our fault ? what about work environment say a welder ? there are inherent dangers of your work environment.

the system here is broken it has been abused and we need a way to weed out the bad from the good ,the eager from the lazy .

That start's with a fully availible private system . if you read my post's above john you'll see what i am getting at.

Paul in calgary

Back in the early sixties, before OHIP here in Ontario.
I was involved in a life threatening accident, I spent 2 months in a Hamilton hospital.
Later the doctor came to our house to deliver his bill to my parents, it was 8,000.00 thousand and change.
My father promised him 20 bucks a week until it was paid, he looked around, seeing as how we weren't the richest people on the block, he scratched the last to zero's off of the bill.
Making it 80.00 bucks.
My parents were gratefull.
True story...
Most doctors would still manage their skills the old fashioned way, but the system won't let them.!

Willian ajax you are correct ...nurses and doctors are taught to heal care and fix people it must be a core value of being in the medical feild not earning 8 gazillion dollars a procedure that is what they are taught they are taught to seek satisfaction in knowing they have helped a fellow human being and eased there pain and they are hero's but again like you said our govornment won't let them .

Paul in calgary

Chill on the name-calling Paul.
Galt makes a good point. There are too many who are quite willing to look to the government to take care of them. The health care system strokes and feeds their insecurities. User fees would slow down the rush to ED.

My sympathy to the young couple.
I have had a few miscarriages.I'm sorry for them that they spent the time in ER waiting.

@ Jim in Calgary:

No problem. The distribution of the pain described is classic for it (after ruling out more serious things). Not every doctor can know everything, its frustrating for both patients and doctors. We're as human as it gets.

Hopefully she never again gets anything like that. Sometimes Multiple Sclerosis presents that way - but so rarely I wouln't worry about it unless other wierd things were going on.

Hope the oncology worked out for you.

Cheers.

@ bluetech

He is not saying that he is defending socialised medicine here in canada and it suck's he is defending it and saying it is good .

I disagree and the sheer attitude in witch he delivers warnt's my wrath ..lol. again he makes it seem like he is the only one who is healthy in canada and he is there for above all when it comes to health care and we should take what we can get and if we don't like it move to the u.s.

Well screw him i am healthy i don't pridem yself on not having geneticly transferd diabetis ,or any other unstoppable ailment's he assumes that if everyone were as healthy as him we wouldn't have so many losers . mouth piece i say . there are lazy fat unhealthy peopel everywhere and yes if there is an apple or a bag of chips i bet most people would eat the bag of chips i agree . That doesn't mean that if every person in canada were perfectly healthy that our health care system would be perfect it is still broken and needs an overhaul.

Paul in calgary.

Paul, focus more on what you believe, not what you think other members of the forum are implying. Your personal attacks are unwarranted and a clear indication that you can't objectively discuss a subject like an intelligent adult.

It's pointless to argue with a stupid person. They'll always drag it down to their level and win on experience.

The time I fell off my mtn bike and fractured my wrist, I walked to the local hospital and received prompt and professional treatment. Canada's sick care system is better than most country's and works quite well if you keep yourself healthy. Far too many Canadians don't do that, and then expect the sick care system to magically fix them for free.

If you're dissatisfied with the Canadian system then go to America and buy whatever treatment you want. Just don't expect the Canadian taxpayers to reimburse you.

So who decides what is a healthy lifestyle and who does the culling?

Paul, my friend, you really should slow down at least long enough to open a dictionary, or at least use the spell-check thingy. There will be time later for your comment, and people will be able to actually understand what it is you are trying to convey. Or else - take a typing course.

"So who decides what is a healthy lifestyle and who does the culling?"

Nature

John Galt: "So who decides what is a healthy lifestyle and who does the culling?"

"Nature"

Not so fast - Canada had decades to prepare for the onslaught of baby boomers who would require medical care in their latter years. Instead, every Canadian city closed down hospitals while simultaneously reducing the number of seats available in universities for medical and nursing students knowing full well that there was going to be a shortage of said professionals due to their cohorts retiring. Canada chose to ignore these glaring and obvious demographic facts. Now why do you suppose that is? In my view, it is not nature that is soley responsible for performing the "strategic" cull. Retiree's no longer work and do not pay near the amount in taxes that other citizens do - they are no longer useful nor viable - a drain on the medical system that is better off providing medical care for the young and productive who can give the state with half thier income every year. It is simply a numbers game.

The "only the strong survive" - evolutionist based philosophy is - in large part - responsible for our current health care situation. The health care debacle was manufactured from the get go.

Healthy people get sick; including the aged healthy - just more so. You will not escape this life without needing medical care no matter how healthy you may think you are.

"John Galt"

I expect your using that nick is meant as satire, as one wonders if you've actually read any Rand.

So you're healthy, eh dude? Bully for you. But if you think you've neatly summarized the canuck healthcare experience because you had a broken wrist fixed in your local ER, then your picture should reside in the OED under the entry "naive".

Give your head a shake, man. Have you had to wait months to see a specialist? What about even waiting to get a family doctor? No? What about waiting for an MRI, or getting bumped for "elective" surgery? Oh, hang on. Yeah, you had your wrist fixed, so All Is Good. I forgot.

The socialized canuck system is based on the fallacy that healthcare is "free". This tends to radically drive up demand, and the supply is stretched, and shortages occur. This, had you not noticed, is easily experienced in the form of "waiting". It's the hallmark of socialized medicine. So you wait for specialists, MRI's, ER treatment, whatever. And you get all those funky examples of people suffering through the overburdened healthcare system: this lamentable example, or the woman who had to fly from alberta to BC to deliver her twins because no beds were available, the tightly wound ontario system that helped spread SARS, ad infinitum.

"Canada's sick care system is better than most country's and works quite well if you never get sick". There, fixed that for you. As many canucks with cancer or other diseases not caused by - as you so snidely infer - lifestyle choices might agree.

Many canucks do go stateside for healthcare; I know folks who saved their own lives by doing so, as wait times for bypasses would have killed them. Literally. So it's an option, and yes: there SHOULD be some form of tax credit if you need treatment that is deferred or denied by the socialized system and have to find it elsewhere. I live in Ontario, Galt, where 50% of our income taxes are spent on healthcare. The service we get is dreary (unless our trips to the hospital involve simple maladies like broken wrists), and unless one has cash on hand, what is the alternative?

There SHOULD be a private option available in this province, along with private insurance and healthcare savings accounts to permit people to sidestep the "free" lines and not have to go to the US for treatment. Do you realize it's legal in ontario to buy an MRI for your dog, but illegal to do the same for your sick spouse, parent or child? How do you feel about that? Canada has kept great company with its socialized medicine, Galt. There are 3 countries where it is illegal to have private medicine (apart from quebec): canada, cuba and north korea. How do you feel about our membership in that little clique?

The only thing worse than the state of this country's healthcare system is the nauseating government spin that tries to paint it as "one of the best systems in the world", and the apologists such as yourself who cop the holier-than-thou attitude to support it. We need people to have a realistic hard look at the system, and the improvements that it needs to actually help those that are paying a whopping amount of taxes to fund it; the government's non-position and your self-righteous pronouncements are helping nothing.

mhb23re

"Canada had decades to prepare for the onslaught of baby boomers who would require medical care in their latter years. Instead, every Canadian city closed down hospitals while simultaneously reducing the number of seats available in universities for medical and nursing students "

Oh come on, that wasn't 'Canada' that was the Lieberals under the Chrétien Regime. They thought gun control and other social engineering schemes were more important than investing in health care. Call it like it is.

The simple fact remains, the more you work to keep healthy then the less you'll need the sick care system.

Eat real food, mostly vegetables, not too much. Avoid 'food' laced with chemicals. Get a good night's sleep, exercise regularly, breathe clean air, drink clean water, don't smoke, don't get drunk, and keep your weight down. Take care of yourself, don't expect the sick care system to do it for you.

It's your body, show some personal responsibility.

Langman, with very little respect, when medical charts are altered for the benefit of the hospital and the health care system rather than the patients and their tax dollars which fund them, they onus is on the doctors to do the tests necessary to diagnose something as simple as a burst appendix.

Is there not a simple chemical test, which I have since heard of, which can clarify whether a toxic spill has happened in the body. Come on, after 11 hours, you would think that the brain power in that room would have at least gone down that road at least to have a look, no?

Your education seems to have clouded your vision and common sense as well!!!

larben,...it should read larben!!!! arghhhhh!!!!!!

Hangs head...its too late to be doing this...it waaaas for langman!!! 8^P

100% spot on langman, socialized medicine causes far more problems than it solves.

Where I currently work is an area where 20+% of the population doesn't have a GP and the choice is between trying to get into one of the walkin clinics or the local ER. During my walkin shifts I see women with early term spontaneous abortions every month or two and they generally get bumped to the top of the list. I suspect that it might be because all of my exclusively female staff have kids and don't want to put a woman in this situation through a long wait. Performing an exam to confirm or dismiss the spontaneous abortion diagnosis is the fastest part of the process and the discussion about the significance of the event (if it is indeed a spontaneous abortion) the longest. I also make it a point to inform newly pregnant women of the high incidence of spontaneous abortions in homo sapiens. Then there are cases like the pregnant lady I saw this weekend whose vaginal bleeding was not a uterine source and she left much relieved.

From a medical standpoint, early term spontaneous abortions are very rarely a medical emergency but seem to be quite psychologically traumatic for the women involved. I would assume that the triage nurse would have done some basic things like take the woman's blood pressure, heart rate and asked questions about how many pads/tampons she'd gone through since the bleeding started shortly after she arrived at the ER. An astute nurse would look at the age of the woman having a miscarriage as older = greater psychologic distress.

One of the things about medicine that people don't understand is that one can't predict very well how busy an ER or walkin clinic will be on a given day. I've walked into St. Pauls Hospital in Vancouver at 03:00 several times and been seen in 5 minutes as the place was close to empty. Another time I showed up at what should have been the quietest hour and found the place to be a zoo overflowing with patients and decided I'd go to my office and remove the staples from my incision myself (it hurts less if someone else does it and to see my regular GP would have meant losing 2-3 hours of income to fit in an appointment during office hours hence the ER visit).

This case is also a poor one to use as an example of the problems with the Canadian medical system as the woman involved was in no danger of dying. I'm sure that if private hospitals were allowed in Canada she would have recieved prompt attention in a private ER. Perhaps she should have donned a chimpanzee costume and gone to a veterinary clinic to get prompt service.

Langman where I work it's still the ER and ED refers to men with a sildenafil deficiency. Also agree that fee for service is the best way to speed things up assuming one has mainly straightforward cases to deal with. As the complexity of the patients increases FFS hourly income drops drastically (if one is doing a thorough workup of each patient) and longstanding chronic pain is a condition that only a masochist would see on a FFS basis.

[quote]There was always a doctor and a nurse in the room with me until I went up stairs. Why would these highly trained medics be required to hang around? [/quote] Atlantic Jim

Hmmm Strange... why would you think that anyone, other than a Nurse or Doctor, would be useful to your medical condition?

My wife had 2 operations in Arizona last winter, one an emergency, and both times the Operating Surgeon & Anesthesiologist rolled her from the Prep into the OR...Its a small touch, but reassuring to the patient that nothing is more important then her care.

In the USA the Doctor's have absolute control over patient care.. The Hospital & Lab work are resources that are booked by the Surgeons staff. The patient is provided with a complete schedule including pre & post Operation appointments before consenting to the treatment/surgery plan…

In Canada the Hospitals & bureaucrats control access to Doctors & Medical care..

An Advantage to Saskatchewan is that Doctors & Surgeons in a small-regulated system are more likely to be competent; in the US the choice of a Surgeon can be a risk

JMHO

@MHB spot on buddy.

As for john galt you still have not understood wherei am coming from forget about personal health responsibilities o.k. that is not my problem yes we have fat lazy self abusers in this country we also have the people who genrally take care of there health eating right sleeping well so on and so forth .

What i am getting at is our health care system not the people who use it ,it's the people who run it that i have a problem with . They are thug's .

And just because you had a wonderful and fantastic expirience you can't speak for 34,000,000 other candians o.k.

if you would read my post's way up near the top you would see what i am talking about and for the most part everyone else in here is talking about.

Paul in calgary

That's better Paul...a calmer approach to the discussion.
Langman and loki are right on. However, I beleieve 'Galt' is making a valid point. The nanny state mentality has created a culture of fear and dependence.
The so-called H!N! epidemic last fall: The ER'were full of paranoid people who could have stayed home with their mild symptoms, and the government got way too involved in pushing the vaccine. My point: the resulting confusion and cost was directly related to people wanting the government to take care of them instead of taking responsibility for their own health and bodies.

Another example is the smoking, obese, sedentary frequent flyers that expect the doctor to 'fix' something because they are afraid to die.
It's too easy for them to come to ER, tie up up nurse's, techs, equipment, and doctor's, who go overboard on testing for fear of litigation (the other factor in this mess).
Beaurocrcy, unions, and dependent culture are all part of the problem.

She did receive an apology from one of the nurses in the emergency department but it was too little too late, she said.

“She came over and she apologized to me, and she said ‘I just wanted to tell you that it’s not that we don’t care,’” Handrahan recounts.

“I remember telling her that I realized tonight how cruel this world really is.”

It's not that we don't care, we just won't do anything for you or let you and your hubby go thru this in private.I admire her patience and restraint I would have punched the bi*ch myself.....

Please people! Do you want to die of neglect in a brand new ER in a brand new hospital or have the caring staff save your life in some old dump? Make up your minds.

Speaking of hospitals, I can recall one with a newly opened OR facility where the patients promptly began dying like flies until some MD brain tried breathing from the 100% "oxygen" line and almost keeled over. "Customers do the best QA indeed".

@ loki, agree as usual. FFS can be a double edged sword, where I am it is more financially rewarding to see a load of MSK cases (sprains, breaks, etc.), abdo pains, chest pains etc. than it is to fully resuscitate a patient who is near death. That kind of thing can tie you up for an hour and ironically is the whole point of the Emergency Dept. The problem is the billing system. I don't know if there is any evidence that a FFS system causes an increase in incorrect or missed diagnosis.

@ glacierman: I cannot comment on modification of charts, I wasn't there. If that did indeed happen then it is disgraceful.

However I will always be honest in regards to my view on the medical system. I fully accept the faults of us physicians all being human and suseptible to incorrect diagnosis. That being said, as I said before, appendicitis in pregnancy can be a difficult diagnosis because there are so many other things that can be going on causing the symptoms. There is no one blood test that can rule in peritonitis (infection in the abdomen) and moreover if there was it would be too late by that time to necessarily prevent the high rate of preterm labor caused by the infection. There are some tests that are assocated with peritonitis but pregnancy itself can cause them to be positive.

Unfortunately the best test for appendicitis is a CT scan which deals a lot of radiation to a fetus and is a test of last resort. Ultrasound is not as sensitive in pregnancy for appendicitis, and if you cannot see the appendix on the ultrasound, than you are out of luck. Going in and operating on a woman who is pregnant has it's own risks and is not to be taken lightly, though is for the most part safe.

However, since you are so sure of yourself in regards to medicine, then I suggest you try the occupation out yourself and show us all how it is done...

Once upon a time patients could depend on health care providers to be their advocates when dealing with the shortcomings of our health care system. Times have changed and now the role of advocate weighs heavily on the shoulders of patients. Thank goodness the Handrahans had the good sense to leave the ER queue and drive to another hospital.

Once upon a time patients could depend on health care providers to be their advocates when dealing with the shortcomings of our health care system. Times have changed and now the role of advocate weighs heavily on the shoulders of patients. Thank goodness the Handrahans had the good sense to leave the ER queue and drive to another hospital.

Some of you appear to be conveniently ignoring the fact that the delivery of health care services is a Provincial responsibility, NOT a federal one. Obviously some Provinces are doing a better job than others. That neither proves nor disproves that the Canadian sick care system is flawed or that it can't be improved.

If you have problems with the sick care system then take it up with your Provincial representatives, or shut up and go to America [or anywhere else] and buy whatever care you want.