There’s more than one way to shorten a waiting list.
Leader Post;
The family of a 57-year-old Meath Park woman says it will take at least three months before their mother gets to see a Saskatchewan oncologist who can tell her if her cancer is treatable or fatal.
And while Health Minister Len Taylor says three months is too long to wait, he offered little Wednesday to indicate wait times to see cancer specialists in this province will soon be getting shorter.
Emily Morley has already waited a month to see an oncologist since receiving her biopsy results that identified her secondary cancer, but were inconclusive in determining the primary source. Until that primary source is identified, her treatment cannot begin.
And even though the cancer is now in Morley’s lungs, liver, pancreas and spine, the Saskatoon Cancer Clinic has advised her it will still take at least three months to see an oncologist.
This after several weeks of diagnostic wait times piling up. However, the Health Minister has assured the family that as soon as they find some oncologists, those lists will shorten!
You’d think that having the “cradle of medicare” for the Best Health Care System In The World[tm] located next door to a country routinely cited as among the worst would result in having to beat doctors back over the border with a stick.
A family member is currently being interviewed on John Gormley Live. Now that publicity has hit the fan, they’ve found her an appointment on the 27th.
I wrote a fluff-piece on my blog in March called ‘Universal Pants Insurance’.
The link is
http://molarmauler.blogspot.com/2006/03/universal-pants-insurance.html
Warwick
It was Mike Harris who took over $2billion from Health Care, closed hospitals, lost 10,000 nurses, increased wait times, caused ambulance drivers to have to drive all over the city because the few emergency rooms were full. He was the Primiere from Hell for sure.
He took a similar amount from the school system.
All this in order to pay for tax cuts because we were paying too much tax. Well, we got our tax cuts all right. With all the disruptions in the school system I took my daughter out and put her in private school ($14-17K per).
So for a few bucks in tax cuts(I can’t even remember how much, that’s how big a deal it was)it created chaos for the sick and the children.
Now I am hearing this same rant from Harper. I am afraid of that phrase now and forever.
Yeah Steve – that’s why we have a shortage of dentists, chiropractors, car dealerships….
Yes, and as we all know, the private school system has lured all the teachers out of the public one.
And now you see what would happen if we let the Liberals implement their national daycare plan and the NDP implement their national prescription drug plan. These guys can’t even bring in a gun registry at under $2 billion.
A parallel private system is the only answer.It is already partly here and is inevitable. The current system is simply not sustainable.
steve d – you bloody hypocrite. You say you took your daughter out of public school and enrolled her in a private system to the tune of $14K – $17K per year. Why? Because you didn’t like the school system Mike harris was giving you. So, why would you deny anyone in Canada the right to do the same thing if they became similarly disenchanted with our disgraceful and bankrupt medicare system? Don’t you think before you shoot off your mouth with your lefty bullshit?
The problem in the healthcare system (my non-expert opinion) is the lack of 3 basic needs for healthcare:
Lack of infrastructure (brick & mortars)
Lack of proper tools (stethoscope to diagnostic imagers)
Lack of people.
Infrastructure is easy, but depending on the scale it will take 1-5 years to build. (takes money and will with no medical professionals required)
Tools is easier. These could be bought off the shelf. Delivery stock to 2 years?
But people. Training people (from a high school graduate) will take 5 (?) years for a nurse to 10 years for a wet behind the ears doctor. No tell someone that they should be a doctor and be beholden to slave for the government at a rate dictated by the government for their entire medical career? Could you imagine the out cry if we had Universal legal aid/counsil paid for by the government? (Lets not talk about governments regulating medical schooling which also precipitated the crisis.)
For this reason, and others I think the pronouncements of PMPM and PMSH are total and utter BS.
Now here is one example how Public/Private healthcare would work.
Doc Fixer is a specialist in joint replacements. After spending years in the private system, he is feeling constrainted and decides to branch out to private. He could enter into two types of contracts the government.
He could contract with the government to use currently underutilized operating rooms/equipment. Maybe he has his own support team and merely needs the room and amenities. Maybe he needs support staff too. Rates can be negotiated. Or maybe he sets up his own custom operating room.
He could also contract with the government to perform X number of knee replacements per year. Since he is in competition with other doctors for this service, the government can choose the lower cost doctors. But Doctor Fixer could also take “walk in” patients.
So now we have Joe Public how needs a knee replacement. The system is full and he has to wait 2 years. Joe can live with this and The Government sends him their own doctor or send him to doctor Fixer if the load is too much for the public system. The government pays the full cost.
But Jane Public (no relation) also needs a knee replacement. The system is full and doesn’t want to wait and goes to Doc Fixer. He uses some of the rented operating room time (or his own) and performs the surgery sooner. She pays to the cost or perhaps there is some co-pay system (since her costs are partial defrayed).
But as a private practitioner he is motivated to be efficient and can set his own workload. There is no motivation to be fiscally responsible in the public system. (If you don’t use your budget you loose it the following year.)
I live in Chicago & work full-time at a not-very-well-paying clerical job while I finish grad school. When I was hired, I had the option of enrolling in one of two HMO/PPO-type plans (in which your choice of primary care & specialist physicians is very limited) or in a private-care plan (in which you pay more in terms of the monthly deduction from your paycheck, but you have a much wider choice of physicians).
Most of my co-workers opted for the HMO/PPO plans to save money (the deductibles are much lower on these as well). I decided to go with the private-care plan; I knew I’d have to watch my finances carefully, but I figured it was worth it (I’m pretty healthy, and have no dependents).
Eighteen months ago I tore a tendon in my right knee. It happened on a Thursday evening; I couldn’t even put my weight on that leg the next morning, and I called my primary-care doctor right away. He saw me the next day (during his Saturday hours), set up an MRI for me the next Tuesday, and two days after that I saw a sports-medicine specialist who set up a treatment plan for me.
One of my co-workers who has the HMO/PPO plan got a nasty bladder infection a few months ago; she called her physician’s office for an appointment and was told she would have to wait six weeks to be seen!! I’ve heard similar stories from people I know who have that particular health plan (yep, I’m piling on the anecdotal evidence, I know).
And yes, the US health-care system has terrible problems and it’s only going to get worse. I’ve been fortunate in that a torn tendon has been my worst health problem in ten years. For anyone who has chronic health problems, the system is a nightmare.
Still, I’m extremely grateful that I at least HAD the option of a private-care health plan through my employer… I’d probably still be waiting for that MRI on my knee otherwise.
And no, my family isn’t wealthy (lower middle-class all the way), I have no trust funds or hidden investment income, and no savings from previous jobs that I can draw on.
That’s my $.02 (USD) worth.
You need to jump in with both feet Paul.
Parallel means we’re paying twice, once for maintaining a useless and broken system and once to get the health care we want.
Why should we do that? Run a private system and help out people who can’t afford insurance. That way the poor get the benefit of a better run, less costly system as well.
If anyone can get ahold of ‘Consumer Driven Health Care’ by Harvard Business professor Regina Herzlinger, I’d recommend the read. She approaches it from the point of view that managed care employer run health insurance of the States is broken and needs a dose of snaity and compassion as well.
It applies to us as well, only we have government playing the role of bloated in-efficient technocratic bureacracy instead of insurance companies.
Steve,
aside from working for a US company, how can I get coverage so I can get US health care? I have a friend who moved to Oregon and has nothing but positives to say about the american system.
As the saying goes, “It’s the charter, stupid”. The supreme court came within a hair’s breadth of declaring monpolistic health care unconstitutional. It’s about choice. Other than moving to a province with better care, what choice would this Sask. woman have? Aside from PUBLIC SHAME, what mechanism exists to get her better care?
Our current system is upside down; it serves the unions, board members, and administration. The patient is viewed as a cost. In no other enterprise would you turn people away in order to reduce costs. In no other field would one tolerate 3 months to deal with an urgent situation.
I don’t want 2-tier; I want 20-tier. Give me a choice of insurance plans, clinics, and hospitals. I’ve lived the Sask system. Alberta is somewhat better, in that they have the funds to lure staff. But they’re still a circle-jerk of bureaucracy and incompetence.
Cuba and North Korea are the only other countries that ban private health care. That says something. Let’s get out of the 1960’s politics.
I live in Dalton/David McGuinty’s riding in Ontario and it’s not any better here. My wife had to wait for months last year for cancer appointments. And, yet David McGuinty (who was unfortunately re-elected) kept telling me not to worry, his brother was going to introduce new waiting time guarantees.
I share Kate’s view. We’ve had enough of Tommy Douglas.
The greatest Canadian?
Gimme a Break.
That honour should have gone to Terry Fox – someone who actually did something to fight cancer.
Molarmauler I’m with you 100%! I just don’t think the Canadian public is mature enough (or scared enough) yet to move to anything other than a parallel system. Any politician who talks about private health care gets crucified. I guess the system will have to get even worse before people realize that it is not sustainable. Or maybe our Supreme Court will have to strike again and rule that it offends the Charter.
I wish Alberta had vision enough to opt out of the public system entirely. I pay over $1000 a year into AHC Premiums with after-tax dollars as it is. Let me pay premiums for private insurance with pre-tax dollars and give me my $400 Ralphbucks each for my family of five and I’d have the start of being able to afford pretty decent health care plan for my family.
The money the province would save by getting out of health care would further reduce my taxes and make giving private insurance vouchers to the poor affordable.
Then everyone from the rest of Canada can come experience good health care and we’ll bill Canada Health for their visits.
It wouldn’t take long for the Alberta model to become the norm.
Instead, like you suggest, no one wants to slay the sacred cow and we end up with confusing transitional crap like the Turd Way.
I agree with you. It’s going to take bankruptcy or Third World level of statistics to get people to accept a better way.
It always comes down to the lefty point of view that government can do everything better that private enterprise.
With very few exceptions this has been proven wrong time and time again.
Government will charge more, give less back and demand more and more money.
Steve, how typically hypocritical of you to put your child through private education. When it comes down to you or your family you will not follow through. Remember Layton and his visit to private clinics?
Couldn’t support your brothers and sisters in the union movement? Can’t support those underpaid, overworked teachers? Shame Steve. Shame on you. No better than a scab. Remember your comment Steve. Any education topics and this will be tossed back at you.
enough
Wait for it: The Answer.
Central Planning: Soviet Style. +
Centralized waiting lists could slash medical wait times, says adviser
By DENNIS BUECKERT
OTTAWA (CP) – Medical lineups could be cut more than 20 per cent just by centralizing waiting lists, says federal wait times adviser Brian Postl. … +
cnews
I also live in AB. Last day worked AuG. 8 2005(Have a herniated disc which causes radial pain down left leg on good days, down both on bad, and have days when standing ir sitting are both a problem).Got in for an MRI Nov. 21! Have been accepted to see a neurosurgeon but the EARLIEST that will be is DECEMBER! Then it might be 6-18 months for surgery and rehab. End result? Might have to sell out and move to some town half the size of Kate’s and two hours from work.
That’s what you get for being honest.If I had taken some painkillers and gone to work(thus claiming it to be a comp case)I would have had surgery within a few weeks.With crap like this I would like to see anyone tell me it’s not good to have any choices. The system’s not broken? Yeah,right…
I want the same healthcare system my dog has!
Something has to change, but it won’t until people realize and accept that someone, probably a corporation, is going to make a profit. Profit: the most foul word in the english language according to the Liberal/CCF/NDP moonbats.
I used too think I was badly done by the Medical system.
That is, until others started to reveal there own personnel medical travesties. Endured by a cold inhuman system.
I was even topped in abuse last week by a guy who had a similar experience. It made the paper. His ordeal lasted 18 hours.
I had a major heart attack. I was put on a gurney, in a hallway. At the time I was in great distress. Having a Major heart Attack.
For 13 hours as I laid there dying. During this, one nurse talked to me for about five minutes.
One aspirin was given me before I was put in the hallway. With the usual hospital accouterments.
If not for a Jewish Intern I would have left the Hospital. He seen me pull out the Glucose drip needle. I was on my way back home to die. I could not take it anymore.
He took one look at my chart & fur flew. He was outraged. I believe too this day he saved my life. A heart surgeon showed up 10 minutes latter.
The inquisition could not have been worse. The indifference by staff. The embarrassment of being almost buck naked in a hallway, (no blanket was given)plus the pain, almost drove me nuts. I reclined listening to perverse jokes by nurses, & there sexual adventures & other inanities.
The worst part though really is you lose your freedom & are treated less than human. Under menchen. Indifference can be crueler than torture. At least your acknowledged as human , if hated.
My cancer was discovered at around noon on a friday. The radiologist contacted the surgeon and they got their heads together (my doc was off on friday) and the upshot was that before midnight the same day, surgery was completed and i was back in my room.
All this proves is that those who dare to say to hell with the “system” are heros in the health care crisis. We need more of these people.
There was no worry about seeing an oncologist, no worry about scheduling problems, just get the job done.
My eternal thanks go out to those who use common sense.
Kate
dentists and teachers and car salesmen are not as rare as medical specialists. There are not enough medical specialists to support two systems. It would take years to graduate enough doctors to support two tiered health care.
It goes without saying that the added competition would increase the cost of the product. You know, the old supply and demand equation.
Enough
Yeah it broke my heart to have to take my daughter out of public school. But they were very sad places to be. All public employees were alternately, raging angry, horribly depressed or melancholy. This was not an environment for a child. A parent has to do what he can. I couldn’t fire Mike Harris and I couldn’t save all the children so I saved the one I loved. She thanks me today. That is all that is important.
“dentists and teachers and car salesmen are not as rare as medical specialists…”
And you’ve never stopped to consider why that is.
To help you out with that question, ask yourself why it is that there are no 3 year waiting lists in the US, if doctors are indeed so “rare”….
Steve,
funny you should mention supply and demand. As I recall from my Econ. class, as supply of something increases, the price goes down. Shrink back the supply and price rises (e.g. crude oil).
Regarding competition… remember when the state-owned telco’s had a monopoly on phone service? We paid through the nose. Bring in competing provider, and wow, all of sudden the price drops.
You want to know the cause of the current shortage : in 1993 the Federal government commissioned a report on the cost of healthcare. In it they determined that costs were higher in regions that had more physicians (duh, they’re seeing more patients!) So in their wisdom, they pared back enrollment in medical schools across Canada. I had friends in medical school at the time and everyone could see the end result of this. With an aging population, and attrition in the field, the coming shortage would be huge.
But aside from the shortage of physicians there’s the insane bureaucratic practice of limiting (rationing) operating room time and hospital beds.
The current system sees the patient as a cost, and the patient is powerless to exercise their free choice. That’s an injustice of the highest order.
‘Good thing my dad got cancer and died eight years ago, ’cause even then, things in the medical system weren’t too good. I hate to think of the quality of care (sic) he’d get today.
One case in point: When my dad was transferred from one major Toronto Hospital to another, I decided to arrive early to make sure he got a top-up of his meds. Done. If I hadn’t asked, it wouldn’t have happened, I’m quite sure. The nurses looked a little miffed. When I asked who was managing my father’s meds at the other hospital, where he was going for consultaion on palliative radiation (it wouldn’t cure him, but it would give him and our family two more lucid weeks before he died, which it did), I was assured that as his meds chart was accompanying him to the other hospital there’d be no problem.
Yeah, right.
My dad waited for four hours on a stretcher in a public waiting area to be seen. When I asked the official on this beat about my father’s meds, which he needed every two hours (he had fourth-stage cancer) and mentioned that his chart had come from the other hospital, I was told, “Oh, that doesn’t mean anything. If a doctor here hasn’t prescribed the meds we can’t give them to your dad.” A case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing?
Very quietly I said to this woman, “If my father doesn’t get his meds while we’re here (it ended up being an eight-hour ordeal), I will scream bloody murder. Find a way for this to happen, please.”
‘Turns out that she was very sympathetic (she’d been through a similar anomoly with her mother a few years before). She found a doctor to prescribe the meds and then told me that her problem was that she had no one to take the prescription downstairs to the hospital pharmacy. I told her I’d take it. Strictly verbotten, of course; but she gave me the prescription and half an hour later, I was handing her the medications which were then administered to my father.
If I hadn’t been with him, he’d have lain on the stretcher and gone to have his head measured for the radiation in agony. By that stage in his illness he was throwing up a lot and was in a lot of pain (which the radiation curtailed). He couldn’t in a million years have advocated for himself.
Once my sister and I got our father into palliative care–we need FAR more of these units, as only 5% of terminally ill people end up with a bed in such a facility–everything changed. He/we were in heaven. Their sole goal was to keep our father comfortable, and for the last two weeks of his life he received top quality care.
Our hospitals are becoming Third-world calibre. When my family and I lived in Central America and our three-year-old had a reaction to penicillin, she spent the night in the hospital. I stayed with her. Families brought food to their family members and their own blankets and sheets. They went and got the nurses when their family member needed something. That’s where we are.
If you want your loved ones to have basic care when in the hospital, you’d better arrange for someone to be with them, to be monitoring the health care very carefully. You’d also better be prepared to “be a Brunhilda,” to scream bloody murder if things aren’t going the way they should. Eight years ago the system was in disarray and almost utterly dysfunctional.
I can only imagine what it’s like now. Kyrie Eleison. One can only pray to be taken quickly when the Avian Bird Flu arrives in Canada.
Just look at cell phone plans if you want to see what consumersim and choice do for costs.
Why shouldn’t health care plans cater to unique individual needs?
It bothers me that I have one choice in my plan.
Steve d says:
“dentists and teachers and car salesmen are not as rare as medical specialists. There are not enough medical specialists to support two systems. It would take years to graduate enough doctors to support two tiered health care.
It goes without saying that the added competition would increase the cost of the product. You know, the old supply and demand equation.”
Doesn’t matter how many different systems there are. The demand is the same. Just because you have more than one public system doesn mean that you have more sick patients. Unless of course you think people are not using the public system due to percieved futility.
In fact, a private system may be able to treat more patients since you don’t have some faceless bearuocrat rationing care.
and it goes WITH saying that increased competition will DECREASE cost. You know, that old supply and demand thing for those who understand it.
The natural end result of socialist hellcare:
“Free” condoms, cocaine, heroin, booze, funerals: Death. +
Vancouver Mayor: Supply Drug Addicts with Heroin, Cocaine
Sullivan, who has been talking to numerous groups and individuals about his desire to see a maintenance program for addicts that would supply them with heroin or cocaine, said he is “very heartened that there is this kind of interest.” +
via nealenews.com
I’ve always heard that the natural end result of socialism is the government killing it’s citizens.
I just never suspected they’d be so passive-aggressive about it and just let the waiting lists do it.
Canadians Discuss Canadian Health Care
For a consumer’s-eye-view of the Canadian health care system, which some urge Americans to adopt, check out the comments on the Small Dead Animals blog post I
Canadians Discuss Canadian Health Care
Kate at Small Dead Animals says of Canada’s long waits for certain health care services: “There’s more than one way to shorten a waiting list.”
Suddenly, I don’t hear anyone saying
” Tommy would be proud ”
Can anyone say two tier health care??
No not with money, but in who you know and how much noise you can make.
She didn’t use money to increase her level of care, she went to the legislature, interupted the daily work, was the lead news story….. and now she gets an appointment in the next week. Bumped up as it were.
Two tier at its finest. It woulda been cheaper to fly her to mayo on the prime ministers jet and shut down all treatment so they could concentrate on only her.
And the people fell over each other to try to help a terminal case get proper care… Of course just imagine the uproar if she didn’t bother the legislature and even volunteered to use her own money. Mob lynching in the street anyone??
My 10 year old son has a rare neurologic condition, opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome. It usually occurs in childhood, but the disability lasts a lifetime. My son has been evaluated by a neurologist from the University of Southern Illinois who is the world’s expert on that condition. He sees patients from all over the US and other countries as well, including Canada. We’ve stayed in the local Ronald McDonald House and met several of the parents of children with OMS from Canada. They’ve all said the same thing. The health care system in Canada provides NO treatment for their sick children. Apparently Canada doesn’t consider it cost-effective to treat rare diseases. When they come to Illinois, the parents have to pay the bills entirely out of pocket. Our insurance has paid for my son’s treatment and even for the travel costs to Illinois. Without treatment, my boy can’t walk or even feed himself. With treatment, he still has problems but he can function.
I hate to think how bad it would be if the US were stuck with the Canadian system and my son was simply abandoned. The Canadians who have come to depend on US healthcare would suffer as well.
I have no doubt that most the horror stories are true. However I was fortunate to have prompt care after my leukemia diagnosis last Oct. I was in the RUH Saskatoon on the 8th of Nov. for chemo and discharged In early Dec. No problem seeing an oncologist then or since. The nursing care was excellent, and when I had an unexpected severe pennicillin reaction after chemo the treatment was prompt and effective. I am nobody special, I’m just me, an ageing farmer with no special connections to anybody influential. Maybe I am just lucky. I have no personal “bone to pick” at all. I know the system needs fixing as I hear of many people lacking diagnostics for potentially very serious conditions. Still I can’t complain about my own treatment. By the way, I have no problem with the idea of private health care paid for by govt. insurance based on premiums paid by we citizens. Private clinics run by doctors would probably go a long way towards solving the obvious mess in which the system now finds itself.
“govt. insurance based on premiums paid by we citizens.”
What do you call taxes???
Around 50% of the entire Saskatchewan budget ends up being premiums we pay to the government for insurance that healthcare will be there when we need it….
If you make 30k a year you probably already pay atleast $5000 a year in premiums (not to mention services like dentistry not covered completely by the government).
Another insurance company with the record I have read about recently would be promptly put out of business. If not by the people who buy going elsewhere, then by the governments own regulations on insurance companies.
Barcs, you have a point there. You can call it taxes or whatever you want. It just seems to me that years ago when we paid an extra health care premium we had a lot more prompt attention to our needs. The only reason I say Govt. ins. in this case is because if they get too caried away with trying to “cheap out” on us we can at least react by voting the buggers out. For the most part I don’t think Govt. should be in business at all.