Yesterday’s legislative session shed some light on the latest development in the province’s nursing shortage. It appears the Weyburn General Hospital will be unable to deliver babies this summer because of staffing shortages.
Specifically, six full-time nursing positions are open on the ward that houses maternity services. According to a report, there are also just two doctors performing deliveries at a hospital where 50 babies are born every year.
So as of June first, mothers heading into labour in the Weyburn area will have to be directed elsewhere.
Weyburn is located in the province’s booming southeastern oil patch, with a population of around 9,500.
| It’s also famous as the home town of the “father of universal health care”. |  |
(Related: The “fight of the century” to fund universal health care in Illinois goes down in a 107-0 vote of the Democratic House.)
weyburnreview was enough to make me retch and ruined my morning.
the more I learn about tommy the commie douglas the more I think we should dig him up and drive a stake thru him.
I would like you to know my personal opinion on medicare and some of the doctors in Ontario. It was too long to include on my brother-in-law’s blog (he was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and given six months to live, by a local oncologist). Where is Tommy Douglas when you need him! My brother-in-law’s blog is:
http://www.thejanzenfamily.com/blog
__________________________________________
Dear Kenny:
Don’t get me wrong, there are many wonderful doctors out there but I think, many of them fall victim to being overly busy and to the tight, strict union-like policy of the Ontario Medical Association. Doctors, of course, don’t work for free since the “cap” on their salaries by the government. So now, try making an appointment with a doctor on a Friday afternoon…good luck! In fact a lot of us don’t even have a family doctor to make any kind of appointment because of the so-called “doctor shortage” in the province. I feel their union is holding the government hostage and the government is saying, hey we just don’t have enough tax dollars to pay these guys the salaries they think they deserve. So a family doctor will have to be content with making only $200,000 a year on a 4 days-a-week job and not $400,000 or more which is what they want.
Like gas prices, all of this seems to be beyond our control. We hear radio ads to voice our opinions on “nomorewaiting.ca” but they want a $20 membership fee to belong to their list. Doctors through their medical association have launched their own ad to show what genuine, nice professionals they are in their concern over the crumbling medicare structure. They’ve come up with 6 Principles posted on “healthiercare.ca” but it’s really their Public Relations department that’s spun these ideas. Try writing any complaints to the Ontario Medical Association and see who answers! Well, doctors are self-employed and have to pay their nurses and receptionists out-of-pocket which is why they need higher salaries! Oh? There are two doctors in my community orchestra whom I’ve noticed drive nicer cars, wear better clothes and live in wealthier parts of town than I do – even at their current salaries for their 4 day a week jobs!
I’ve read the OMA’s 6 Principles and they don’t really say anything. They are fluffy words full of generalities which are aimed at making the doctors of Ontario look good. “We must look to the future, not the past; we must focus on solutions, not problems; we must think about patients and what they need, not what the system can supply.” Nice political speech from the medical PR department! But if you read behind the words and ask yourself, okay if we must look at what patients need and not what the system can supply, then who will supply what the patients need? That simply means patients, themselves, will have to pay for what the system cannot supply! Poor people will get crappy treatment and we will have a multi-tiered system like they have in the States, “the land of the free!” There will come a time when you won’t be able to get that second opinion or that more skilled treatment unless you have insurance or pay for it with your own money. Well, there goes Universal Healthcare! It’s been a nice concept though, over the past 50 years or so, bless that crusty, old Canadian icon, Tommy Douglas. And who says there’s no conspiracy theory out there to take our houses and our savings as we decline into sickness and old age when we don’t have the strength to fight back!
…dang! and here I thought it was baby making time…
The same thing happened in Milton, Ontario a few years back. It’s population was 35,000 but they pulled the obstetrics unit because of staff problems even though the population was about to grow substantially. Now Milton has 65,000 people and while the obstetrics has come back, there are no plans to enlarge the hospital even though provincial government plans call for a population in Milton of 120,000 within 5 years.
hmmmm…. systemic consequential eugenics…Tommy is smiling from his heated throne.
The numbers sound odd, 50 babies a year or one baby a week with two doctors. Hmmm. Doctors must be busy doing something else otherwise they are starving. Probably the MSM screwed up story.
According to a report, there are also just two doctors performing deliveries at a hospital where 50 babies are born every year.
So 50 babies per year…. 50 babies per 365 days…. 1 baby every 7.3 days (~per 1 week)and 2 doctors CAN’T handle this????????????
That paragraph makes it sound like some sort of catastrophe where these 2 poor doctors are over worked. Oh my…. we’re daring to make them deliver 1 baby per week… between the 2 of them? How dare we!
how would they have handled the Dionne quints?
one baby a week? taxi drivers in New York must be as busy.
That Illinois health plan was some plan, all right. $7.6 billion in annual taxes in a state with an annual product of about $500 billion. I wonder whether Governor Blagojevich would have regarded a reduction of his salary by 1.5% in the same light.
So the problem with universal state run health care seems to be the Socialists who Run the State!
Gosh who would have thought???
The problem is that doctors do very little during the actual labour. The maternity nurses do most of the care in the hours from the time of admission until the baby is born. The doctor breezes in at the end for the actual delivery. So no maternity nurses means no maternity ward. Now women in labour will have to travel at least an extra hour to either Regina or Estevan. I find it sadly ironic that Tommy Douglas’s dream of government providing every citizen with basic medical care has turned out this way. In his own home town no less. The system can not even provide for this most basic of service.
I wonder what the reaction of cdns would be, or douglas followers, if the Federal Govt changed the Health Care Act back to what it was originally, and only covered the procedures in place then. There was no abortion, sex changes, cosmetic surgery, vasectamies, boob jobs, etc. We could probably afford the basics, but idiots decided that the nose they were born with was not good enough or boobs were too small and thought the government should pay for their parents inability to produce a perfect child. We need to cut a lot of so called necessary procedures, and make the patient pay if they want them. Doctors from England come to canada in droves to get away from state run medicine, and yet, the liberal govt of the day followed Douglas into pergatory.
And Layton complains of the Bloc supporting the conservatives. At least they are only protecting themselves, and not forcing unmanageable programs on all of us.
when the socialist medicine or “payforprofit healthcare” system as CBCpravda calls it was introduced , the type of things people expect and demand and even sue for werent even conceived of , artificial knees, organ replacements,
people expect to be delivered, scissored, vaccinated, vasectamated, snipped, clipped, extended, distended,enhanced, fat slurped and finally burped all on the public purse.
Well at least these mothers to be can take advantage of the only bit of the Universal Deathcare System that Douglas and the left wing moonbats have pushed. Abortion at tax payers expense at any time.
Well good for ol’Tommy and the ndp. I was taught these guys were the true fathers of good warm fuzzy things like medicare and Public housing. Now I find that the Fascists in Italy
implemeted forms of Medicare and Public housing
long before these current clowns thought of it.
Kooks come in all sizes and shapes and doctrines.
who was better or worse for the people; el Duce
or the ndp?
When they start laying off nurse’s because it is too expensive to keep the ward open check 2 things(some commenters are on to one):
1.# of abortions in community payed by our taxes.
2.# of ‘adminstrative assitants’ hired for the ‘overworked’ admin.
But even if you get the info,and you find the $pending outrageous who would listen to your concerns?…your only the taxpayer…
mary T wrote
“Doctors from England come to canada in droves to get away from state run medicine, and yet, the liberal govt of the day followed Douglas into pergatory”
You are joking, the UK, unlike Canada has private health care running alongside the state run health care. try googling BUPA
mary t has never been large on actual facts. Too often they screw up a good rant.
I’m shocked at the relative honesty of the (Democrat-led) Illinois Legislators. In Canada the funding question would be glossed over or buried by the Libs, NDP and even likely by the so-called conservatives that I helped elect.
I guess Illinois must have costed out how much their free universal health care was going to cost them or they looked at the great white north and saw what happens when politicians start using the program to better themselves.
Our plan was great in the beginning but then politicians started tinkering with it to get elected and look at the mess they made. They’d screw up the Lord’s Prayer if they knew it.
We’re now at the point where we have to ration out health care. So much for universal, eh.
maryt – not to let to many facts get in the way:
Services Not Covered by Saskatchewan Health
Hospitals and medical care for certain elective treatment services such as:
Cosmetic surgery
Removal of warts and other benign lesions
Sterilization reversals
Removal of portwine stains on skin for people over 17 years of age
Routine circumcision of newborn males
http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/ps_coverage_not.html
More accurate arguments may help. Breast reductions are only covered if back pain hinders the patient – I see no where that augmentation or sex changes of any sort are even remotely covered. Maybe give us the links so we can all see it before we call our MLA’s.
Funny, all the doctors from England that arrived in our area and cities said the reason they left was the new rules. I am going back a lot of years, when it all started in England. Today and 50 yrs ago are a lot different.
I sure do get sick of the doctor bashing that goes on whenever our health care system is discussed. When you look at what doctors are actually paid on a fee-for-service system and the hours they must work, then deduct the crushing costs of overhead and malpractice insurance, gps often make less per hour than their nurse colleagues. The nurses are paid per hour, with benefits, paid vacation, overtime/or time in lieu of and pensions. They do not pay malpractice insurance or overhead. And don’t even get me started about state-funded abortion!!!
(Weyburn)’s also famous as the home town of the “father of universal health care”.
This notice certainly deserves some sort of award in the Irony Sweepstakes…
slow down people
1. no way on earth does a nurse(my wife is a RN) make more money than a doctor
2. nurses are overworked, are scheduled literally week to week(the hospital actually calls the house looking for her to pick up a shift, when she is there working)and tasked to do things that they should not be doing
3. just wait for it – a whole bunch are going to be retiring soon, and many of the prima-donnas coming from our universities have no intention of emptying your mother’s bedpan(or yours for that matter)
4. the amount of money wasted on”admin” staff is mind-blowing, considering most of them could not organize an orgy at a bordello on dollar day with a sack full of loonies
BTW Kate I Looove that classic dipper/CCF utopian cartoon of the family on the shining path…did they steal that from the red guard murals of China’s social renewal? Same concepts.
Is that picture of the terrified family staring into the sun supposed to by captioned “The Sun Sets on Saskatchewan” or “Gonna be a Looooong Hot Day”?
…2.5 kids, how’d the CCF know back then that was Canada’s birthrate?
http://www.indexmundi.com/canada/birth_rate.html
…well 10.78 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
God I hate Commies!
Giving birth in a rural community of 9,500. How quaint. In Manitoba those days are long gone.
Note that even in Tommy’s day, we aspired to pitted dirt roads….
Weyburn was the home of the insane asylum when I was a kid in Sask. How fitting..who knew? Not me.
Mary T if you are going to talk about 50 yrs in the past don’t use the present tense.
Things are different today, both in Canada and the UK, which is why any docs from the UK heading west are going to the US not to Canada and our N Korea/Cuban style deathcare system.
Lets not forget Canada does not recognise UK qualifications.
107-0? Nice. Very nice.
Just like that 98-0 vote against Kyoto during Clinton’s 2nd term. Give the people what they want!
Too funny. You guys are seriously the biggest suckers since… well America. You have bought hook line and sinker, the arguement posed by lobbiest who would love nothing more than to sink their teeth into simpletons like yourselves.
First of all, Americans pay way, way, way more than we do for healthcare. Both privately, and through taxes.
How do you suppose that a private system can offer lower rates, better wages, and still generate profits for shareholders? Are you also aware of the fact that nearly 45 million Americans are now without insurance? Are you retarded?
Take a look at this. Read it and weep me buckos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared
And before you go saying “pffft”, take note of the references… those aren’t organizations like the Fraser who are seeking data merely to support their conclusions.
Let’s see…
The provincial gov’t puts approx. 45% of its annual budget into our health care system. The feds also put a large chunk in (can’t remember the actual percentage, though).
John…I’m saying “pfffft” in your direction. Drop my taxes payable by 45% to the province and by whatever percentage federally (I’m guessing its in the 10-15% range of annual expenditures). Let me take that money from the taxes I paid, apply it to my health care premiums (even though the vast majority of employers in the US subsidize their employees’ plans heavily) and see how much I have left over.
While 45 million Americans may go without insurance, bear this in mind. Every state has state run hospitals. If you don’t, won’t or can’t afford health insurance, get in line and wait for the state to look after you. Sounds a lot like Canada doesn’t it?
Get in line and wait.
Hopefully you live to see the doctor.
For much too long, we’ve been duped into making sure we let government look after us in the interests of “fairness”.
Tell me this, then. How is it fair that we pay $1.20 per litre for gas, yet the government won’t do a bloody thing about it but yet wants to treat me in hospital the same as the piece of crap who eats Doritos all day, bitches incessantly and won’t get off his a** and get a job???
So basically what you are saying NewDad, is that you like the American system, where not only do you pay lots of dough privately, but also through the government. Brilliant. The wealthy heads of insurance corps just love people like you, who beg to hand over their hard earned dollars.
As I pointed out… Americans pay way, way more. Do you hate socialized medicine so much that you won’t even accept that it is in fact more efficient? That’s not rational.
John,
I have first hand experience with the US system. A family member of mine needed a hip replaced. Yes, he had been paying about $200/month in premiums to a HMO while his employer picked up the other $125/mo. From the day he met his specialist for the first time until he was on the table was less than 2 weeks.
Yet, in Sask. people are on wait lists for hip replacements for 6 months or more.
Give me a counter example to show that the US system is less efficient than the Canadian one.
By the way, his $2,400 in premiums per year would work out to be a little more than half of what he would’ve paid in provincial income tax in Sask. The balance is a small price to pay to have treatment in a matter of days instead of months and years.
Via Wikipedia, which quotes peer-reviewed sources:
“The United States spends more per capita on health care than the government does in Canada. In 2003, the government of Canada spent $1886 (in US dollars) per person on health care, while the United States government spent $2548.[11]
Despite the American government paying more per capita, private sources also pay far more for health care in the United States. In Canada an average of $630 dollars is spent annually by individuals or private insurance companies for health care, including dental, eye care, and drugs. In the United States this number is $2719.”
So yeah… Americans pay way, waaaaay more. And as for your family member who scored the hip relacement nice and quick… there are 47 million Americans who will never have such luxury operations, because they can’t afford insurance, which by the way keeps going up and up and up.
I know you want to imagine them as dorito-eating bums, but they are people mostly like you and me. The United States is shaping up to be a gigantic cautionary tale. Observe and learn, cuz their empire is falling apart at the seams, and it has next to nothing to do with the “evil libruls”.
Wiki post:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared
John,
It begs the question…47 million Americans can’t afford insurance. My friend, life is all about choices. If it’s important enough to have, one will find a way to make it happen. Instead, you and your ilk seem to think that government should look after you 24/7.
Heating one’s home is a life necessity, too. Yet, I never hear people like you, John, saying the government should pony up for people who can’t “afford” natural gas. If there’s a will, there’s a way to get it done.
Our society is being brought down by people who rely on the government to solve all their problems for them instead of thinking for themselves, acting for themselves and living for themselves.
Take half my provincial income tax, give it back to me and let me make the health insurance payment. It may cost me slightly more per year, but at least I’ll be able to get good quality treatment a lot sooner. If not, that HMO loses my business to someone else.
If I decide to use that money in another fashion…for whatever reason, and don’t insure myself, I’ll have no one to blame if something happens to my health but myself. Wait…I forgot, I live in Canada and it’s always the government’s fault.