Treatment you’d only wish on Jack Layton;
We waited nearly an hour for a resident to finally stop by and enquire what the matter was. Appallingly, she had no prior knowledge of why my Mother had been admitted. My shock increased after she asked, in all seriousness, if the angioplasty had been a success. I can only assume that the look on my face caused her to retreat and summon the physician on duty. Exhibiting Solomon like wisdom, the attending doctor suggested that a physical examination was in order. She then disappeared with the resident in tow. A nurse was dispatched who informed us that my Mother would have to be undressed for the examination. Since this Angel of Mercy made no offer to assist, I took it upon myself to undress my bedridden mother in a public corridor, in full view of the passing parade of visitors, patients and staff. (Truth be told, the homeless guy was pretty discrete, or at least preoccupied.)
Mom was eventually examined, in the public corridor, and an ultrasound ordered, all while a street person dumped a filled adult diaper on the floor and replaced her own soiled bed linens in the ward next to us.
Read the whole thing.
My mom was sick 10yrs ago sadly we took her to the local small canadian city hospital. Her Dr wanted….no needed her transferred to Royal U in Saskatoon. But of course no beds. So we waited and my mothers health went backwards. After three days my uncle arrived from the USA. Also a Doctor. He conferred with mom’s doctor made ONE call to the past President of the College of Surgeons and Physicains; his college buddy. Mom had a bed in less then 3 hours. We gladly jumped the line. Anybody who thinks we have universal health care is a moron. The family of doctors, nurses, gov’t officals do not wait. I’m only sorry I didn’t get my uncle to phone right away. Socialism is grand.
Canada’s healthcare system is great when you are diagnoes terminally ill, but the path from diagnoses to treatment to death is littered with our dead. I’m so sick of the left telling me what kind of healthcare I can seek based on their narrow twisted belief system that somehow someway I’ll get better care if I can pay for it. That’s what it comes down to, the left fear we’ll receive adequate healthcare thus they demand we all get placed on a rationed list lest I live a day longer than the demented leftards.
“Line jumping in health care” makes excellent newspaper headlines, but should be followed by “friends of bartenders sometimes get free drinks”
What’s the problem, it’s free ain’t it?
We have also been told to “pull strings” by calling on Doctor friends or friends of friends.
Which just goes to show you that no matter what the social engineers try to pull, human nature will out and old fashioned stuff like “who you know” takes over.
Twas ever thus, but they cannot accept it.
Yup Kathy…discharges are often too soon and without proper follow-up. There is no flex in hospital beds, capacity is usually 95% or higher. So no ability to handle a surge…and patients don’t get sick at even intervals, so admitted patients who don’t have tubes in them get sent home, even if they can’t walk or talk, hoping they’ll get better on their own or get readmitted when there are beds or they are so sick they have no choice.
I used to work in hospitals and left for the real world. However, good family docs can be hard to find…I know of patients who are detest their family doc (for poor care or horrible bedside manner) but ARE TOO SCARED to actually ask for information/better care in case they are dropped from the roster and they have no where else to go.
If you go to ER, ALWAYS, have an advocate with you the ENTIRE TIME. Even as a health care educator/professional I stayed all night with my mother-in-law and the nurses/staff still did not do the right thing. Once she was admitted under the medical service (but still in the ER), ER staff washed their hands of her and would not write for her regular meds (even when I asked), the medical service did not answer calls, and she went into pulmonary edema and almost died. She was too old you see.
I was too “nice” to make an official complaint, and one nurse actually said “you’ll get us into trouble”….
Oh but it’s the best in the world!!! /sarc
My a$$.
How ironic: after reading this post, I turn on the TV and “Canine Confidential” is on CBC. The topic — animal health care. Clients can get MRI, cat scans, etc. for their pets with little to no wait time.
We seem to demand better care for our pets than we do for ourselves.
There are horror stories with just about every health care system in the world. That’s easy to find, as no system is perfect or even great.
To those who think we’d be better off with a US-like system, perhaps you want to check their horror stories first. Like that lady who died choking on her own blood in a ER room where nobody would help her as she had no insurance. Her husband had to call 911 – from an ER room, to no avail.
My mom and dad both had cancer treatment right here in Canada and both had outstanding care, and fully recovered.
It’s easy to say ‘free enterprise is best’ when you’ve never been sick. Try to buy insurance in the US if you have a bad condition – try it. Nobody will touch you.
Curious George said: anecdotal. doesn’t prove a thing.
God forbid you ever have to avail yourself of ER at TGH.
Blazingcatfur… I read your post yesterday regarding your mom.
my heart goes out to you, your mom, and all the others that have no choice in the matter of who is providing our health care.
I have the sense that an uprising of sorts will happen over the coming generational change in Canada… that those who set this system upon us, will not tolerate it amongst themselves for their loved ones.
keep making notes, keep the pressure on those who impose this system on us.
No one is saying that Canada should adopt the US health system. What we are saying is that Canada’s system has significant problems and that we should not be afraid to try innovate ways to address them. Boasting about how we are better than the US doesn’t cut it.
Pricks like Layton should have to go hang out in a hospital like that for a day.
and when making those notes, keep writing them in permanent ink !
Phantom – I’m not studying in Ontario! Radiology is a tempting prospect, but spending all my day in a dark room? The only other job that fits that description is vampire š
I am really amazed how uninformed some people are regarding the US health care system. You make it sound like people are dying in the streets every day.
Canadians love to say that Americans are closed-minded, but I think Canadians can be very closed-minded too.
I’m Canadian, my wife is American, our kids are dual citizens, and given a choice I’d take American health care any day of the week.
This is healthcare in Steve Harper’s Canada?? While he’s funding skidoo trails and recroom renovations?? Can’t say you weren’t warned.
Tory times are sorry times. Brad Devine…take note.
Not to mention the $$$Billions shoveled into the trough for rural western-conservative welfare bums.
It’s all about priorities.
Don’t get cancer. There are 20-some drugs licensed for treatment of this awful disease and here in Ontario only 6 (I believe) are “free”.
You have to pay for the others yourself if you don’t have some sort of drug plan. A good friend of mine is battling for her life and a 6 month supply of a maintenance drug to keep her cancer in check was 55,000$
philboy: please get your facts straight. Healthcare may be federal, but it is funded primarily by the provinces. That’s why people here are talking about McGuinty (and his over-budget eHealth system). And if you guys think care in Ontario is bad, you should see it in Quebec. Don’t even bother getting sick in QC — just don’t.
The public option is pretty good for the times when 90% of the contacts are made – annual physicals, cold/flu symptoms, etc. I will cede that.
The public option is good for the times we don’t really NEED a doctor. It is when you REALLY NEED a doctor that the system fails, and produces some real head-scratching stories, like those above.
Oh no, it’s never Steve’s fault. But instead of directing funds to rec room renos and western rural conservative welfare bums, he could fund healthcare, nation wide. The buck stops with the Dear Corpulent Leader.
I believe that constitutionally, health care is the responsibility of the provinces. That is why different provinces are able to set guidelines as to what is covered by their health care plans. A lot of funding for this provincial responsibility comes from the Federal Gov’t, which likes control of things. The Federal Gov’t enacted the Canada Health Act which (unconstitutionally) controls how the province manage their constitutional area of responsibility, health care. If any particular province wishes to contravene the Canada Health Act, ie: allowing doctors to extra bill, or patients to pay for medically necessary services to bypass waiting lines; then the feds withhold transfer money from the provinces.
mike
Posted by: Stan at August 27, 2009 8:30 PM **Pricks like Layton should have to go hang out in a hospital like that for a day.**
“Pricks like Layton” call ahead and get their own private room instead of ER….
I cannot wait for the day when Chretien, Martin, Romanow, etc. need medical attention and must get in line or travel south to sample the forbidden fruit (U.S. Medicine). The Queen Liberal, Belinda Stronach was once upon a time preaching from the sacred scrolls and telling canadians how great our health care system is. Then what do you know? she gets sick and jets off to California for medical treatment. A que jumping -itch.
Philboy, funding healthcare from the federal level will not help… It is outside of federal jurisdiction in Canada. The federal government only gets into the play, by withholding funds from jurisdictions that didn’t want to play the game.
and if you’d like to have a look at some figures on the rewarding of mediocrity in Canada, here’s a good place to start… note how well the eastern provinces and Quebec have done…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments
all but a couple of the countries that have placed in the World Health Organization’s listing of quality of healthcare, that place above Canada, have a system in place that allows for people to opt out of the publicly regulated system, or to purchase additional insurance, to cover additional expenses. the list is here, although as it says, this list is no longer updated due to costs bla bla bla… http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
Philboy, just what share of the taxes the feds take in would you have them spend on health care? 80%? 95%?? I think that there has been some very excellent cases made to the point that throwing money at Canada’s lousy health care system doesn’t make an iota of difference. When will you guys over on that side of the fence get it through your heads that money will not fix what is broken in Canada’s health care system? Something has got to change.
Throwing more money at the system isn’t going to fix it Philboy.
philboy,I happen to remember guys like Roy Romanow and John Cretien, I gotta tell you just by getting up in the morning Brad Wall and Stephen Harper are way better than either of them. It was a great day in Saskatchewan when the NDP were sent packing and if the federal Liberals were in charge or the coalition they would give a guy like Omar Kadr a heroes welcome home, those are things I can do without.
just what share of the taxes the feds take in would you have them spend on health care?
Let’s start with every dime Harper borrows to fund rec room renos and western conservative rural welfare bums, and then see where we are.
When will you guys over on that side of the fence get it through your heads that money will not fix what is broken in Canada’s health care system?
Then why do you and Harper think that borrowing $$$ for rec room renos and conservative welfare bums will solve anything??
GreenNeck 8:00 pm, No one is talking about adopting US style healthcare, which is what you status quo people always trot out. Twenty-five to twenty -eight countries have better health care than Canada does. How much do you want to bet that they are not Cuba or North Korea.
Sorry, BCF, to hear of your and your mother’s horrendous experience. I could recount a few of my own horror stories when my father was dying 11 years ago — also in a Toronto hospital. ‘Good thing you were with your mom, and good thing I was with my dad. He would have died weeks before he did of neglect if I hadn’t been there to run interference for him and DEMAND that he get attention.
As for your observation that “there was no chart, nothing,” I observed on many occasions when I or a member of my family requested something for my Dad, such as a top-up of pain relief (he had cancer), the attending nurse, whose shift could easily end before the top-up was needed, either wrote nothing on the chart OR WROTE IT IN PENCIL, all the while nodding in agreement that, yes, of course, she’d administer a top-up.
I suspect that the reason for this is so, if anything untoward happened to the patient — like an untimely end — there would be no paper trail: If nothing’s written down, how can there be any evidence of malpractice or negligence?
I also suspect that the appalling lack of care and concern your mother experienced is not an isolated incident; we’re going to see increasingly sloppy and careless practices in hospitals concerning the elderly. I sometimes think that the very idea the government has in mind is that sloppy procedures speed up the demise of a number of “inconvenient lives.” No big deal.
But, shhhhhhhh. You can’t say it out loud.
TJ — The point is, the American system is fine, in fact, really good if you are covered by a good health insurance plan. The problem is, lots of people are not. So don’t try to tell them about how wonderful the U.S. system is. One of the challenges for getting a decent public system in place in the States is that a lot of people are o.k. with their private insurance. But at some point you must acknowledge that tons of people (46 million in fact) have no health care coverage and for them, health care stinks in the States.
Question: For all those people complaining about health care in Canada, what do you recommend as a solution. I am serious — how would YOU fix the system?
In relation to Valencia’s post, be polite when advocating for your parent but don’t be NICE. It doesn’t work. Know what you want, be clear, be insistent, and be like a Chinese water torture drip. Don’t let up!
When my father had to wait interminably for pain relief in the ER of a big Toronto hospital, I told the nurse that we treat animals better. I was disgusted by the callousness of the staff.
If it’s clear that someone you love IS dying, the best place for them is in a palliative care unit. Ask — or demand — a place. Two weeks before he died, I got my father a bed in one of the very few palliative care units in Toronto, where he was magnificently cared for: His comfort and pain level were paramount, the care was humane, and he was treated with the utmost dignity by the staff. Unfortunately, palliative care units have space to care for only about 5% of dying patients.
England is much further ahead than Canada in the treatment of the elderly and the dying in hospices and palliative care units — or, at least, it used to be. More of our energies and resources should be going into the establishment of these kinds of facilities.
LindaL, I have 100’s of colleagues, friends, and family in the US, some self-employed, some working for major companies, some part-time employed, some young, some old and retired, some educated, some not, and every last one of them has health insurance.
Sue. Sue, jointly and severally, everyone who’s name is in the chart. Sue the hospital administration, the health district and anyone else remotely related to the case.
Financial pain and threat of suspension or loss of license is the only way the medical system and health care personnel will be forced to become more accountable.
Another tactic that forces medical personel to perform their jobs properly is to be respectfully and relentlessly assertive. Be at your loved ones bedside as much as possible, watching, questioning, documenting, and monitoring the care. Informing the medical staff of your intention to contact the media and publicize your terrible hospital experience works wonders to improve care.
TJ : “I have 100’s of colleagues, friends, and family in the US, some self-employed, some working for major companies, some part-time employed, some young, some old and retired, some educated, some not, and every last one of them has health insurance.”
__
That’s fine, but 46 million do not.
LindaL fire the administrators
Lindal: my answer to you question keeps getting hung-up on kate’s spamfilter. I will try and post it in pieces.
Linda l asked and will try and answer:
part one
My take is that medicine is the only commercial enterprise that rivals public sector endeavours such as the military and putting a man on the moon. In the latter two cost is almost irrelevant – lives are at stake. Lives are at stake in medicine as well and marginal improvements in longevity or pain relief can attract almost limitless expenditure. For example, how much would bill gates be prepared to pay for a procedure if it would save his or a loved ones life? Such market potential attacts a myriad of companies and people pushing the edge of technology to meet the demand and reap the financial rewards.
Toby W.: “fire the administrators”
___
Good suggestion, but whom would you hire? I just do not think there are easy solutions. It is very easy to complain about what’s amiss in the Canadian health care system — or alternatively the U.S. — but I really do not think anyone has a viable solution. We are dealing with too many people needing health care and too few resources. That’s the situaion on both sides of the border. Really, I agree the Canadian system is not great, but if I can go to the U.S. — or Quebec — to get faster service, that’s tolerable. I suspect that the future of health care services will be closely tied to health care tourism.
Lindal: my answer to you question keeps getting hung-up on kate’s spamfilter. I will try and post it in pieces.
Linda l asked and will try and answer:
part one
My take is that medicine is the only commercial enterprise that rivals public sector endeavours such as the military and putting a man on the moon. In the latter two cost is almost irrelevant – lives are at stake. Lives are at stake in medicine as well and marginal improvements in longevity or pain relief can attract almost limitless expenditure. For example, how much would bill gate be prepared to pay for a procedure if it would save his or a loved ones life? Such market potential attacts a myriad of companies and people pushing the edge of technology to meet the demand and reap the financial rewards.
“How about you read the entire thing curious_george.
Posted by: Chairman Kaga at August 27, 2009 6:07 PM ”
chairman mao: I did. I still insist the entire event is not representative of anything but TGH.
sol’n? gtf out of liberaland Tranna.
I’m an American who has lived in Canada for over 5 years, and if I had to make a choice to where I wanted to be treated for a major illness, I would choice to go back home. When I had a condition know as Bell’s Palsy, I went to the hospital and was seen in a matter of minutes. When I had a problem with my leg and ended up being a serious infections, I had to wait over 10 hours to be seen and didn’t go home till 4am.
The bad part of the states in private health insurance where for my wife(who is Canadian) and my two stepsons it was costing me over 400 bucks a month and I still had to make a co pay to see a doctor. But, I knew that If I needed to see a doctor or go to the hospital I could and I knew that I would be seen very quickly.
Sorry if this whole thing doesn’t make sense right now, I will try to post some comments when I have a good night’s sleep.
Gord tulk: I think you have got it. Could we perhaps provide improved heath care services if we skipped that bit about “putting a man on the moon.” But, alas, I don’t think market demand is the ultimate driver of acceptable health care services, though it may be the driver of premium health care services.
part two:
Compare that to a product that meets 99% of ones needs in a non-essential thing – microwave ovens. Back in the day they cost well over 2000 dollars in todays funds. Now they aren’t worth taking in a b&e.
Healthcare has similar stories. An upcoming one is lipitor$ – the most commonly prescribed drug in the world. Today the maximum dosage of this lifelong chronic med is about 4000 a year. Two years from now when it comes off patent protection it will probably cost less than a tenth of that amount. The problem is, unlike microwave ovens there are several new gotta have it hyper-expensive drugs soon to available to the public. It’s like we have been to the moon and now we want or rather need to go to mars ASAP and after that, Venus.
When we wanted to go to the moon for the first time or deemed it necessary to build an atomic bomb for the first time we looked to the deep pockets and long term stamina of the government to direct,fund and assume all risks in these highly risky, nil fiscal payback endeavours. But would we expect government to play that role on the hundredth moonshot, or the hundred thousandth satellite launch, or the production of the once highly advanced lee enfield 303?
The same goes for the field of medicine. The vast majority of healthcare expenditures are pedestrian – low cost and low risk. Government should be no where near this sector of the business other than to perhaps – like education – fund and require parents and guardians to provide for their children’s healthcare needs. And like education, specific healthcare taxes should pay for it. (the delivery mechanism should be a hsa with catastrophic pooling but that is a topic fo another post). Use of Bleeding edge (pardon the pun) medical technologies could be funded by government and liability exemptions provided but this would be a very small part of the whole.
part two:
Compare that to a product that meets 99% of ones needs in a non-essential thing – microwave ovens. Back in the day they cost well over 2000 dollars in todays funds. Now they aren’t worth taking in a b&e.
Healthcare has similar stories. An upcoming one is a cholesterol med – the most commonly prescribed drug in the world. Today the maximum dosage of this lifelong chronic med is about 4000 a year. Two years from now when it comes off patent protection it will probably cost less than a tenth of that amount. The problem is, unlike microwave ovens there are several new gotta have it hyper-expensive drugs soon to available to the public. It’s like we have been to the moon and now we want or rather need to go to mars ASAP and after that, Venus.
When we wanted to go to the moon for the first time or deemed it necessary to build an atomic bomb for the first time we looked to the deep pockets and long term stamina of the government to direct,fund and assume all risks in these highly risky, nil fiscal payback endeavours. But would we expect government to play that role on the hundredth moonshot, or the hundred thousandth satellite launch, or the production of the once highly advanced lee enfield 303?
The same goes for the field of medicine. The vast majority of healthcare expenditures are pedestrian – low cost and low risk. Government should be no where near this sector of the business other than to perhaps – like education – fund and require parents and guardians to provide for their children’s healthcare needs. And like education, specific healthcare taxes should pay for it. (the delivery mechanism should be a hsa with catastrophic pooling but that is a topic fo another post). Use of Bleeding edge (pardon the pun) medical technologies could be funded by government and liability exemptions provided but this would be a very small part of the whole.
part three:
Should the populace deem it important that adults have some degree of government (read: universal coverage) for procedures that are necessary but of lower cost, then the method of delivering that funding is via government funded individual health spending allowances that allow the individual to shop for the care provider of their choice with the incentive to conserve this allowance into the future – a bonus on their old age security perhaps.
The above outline typically has begged the question: how do we get there from here?
The answer is to create government-funded HSAs with relatively small balances that only cover paramedical services that aren’t covered currently – eg chiropractic, massage etc- and prove the concept. Then expand it first into daignostic services (that are currently covered)and from there into the more entrenched parts of the system (read: heavily unionized) with, by then, the vast majority of cdns – having had experience with HSAs and understanding the benefits – strongly supporting the change.
Hope that answers your question Lindal
PS- do not use the word (l i p i t o r) in a post
LindaL – I think you missed the memo. Here is a breakdown of the 46 – 49 million insuranceless souls:
“After deducting the ~12 million illegal immigrants, Census Bureau data for 2006 reveals 36 million U.S. citizens are uninsured, not 47 million. That data, however, does not clearly identify the number and portion of people that might legitimately be considered the problematically uninsured.
Of the total 47 million, 17.7 million or 38% earned more than $50,000 annually, 10.4 million or 22% were āindividualsā, 22.0 million or 47% were employed full-time, and 8.7 million or 18.5% were under 18 (most now covered by expanded SHIPP funding in 2009). Data from other reliable sources reveals 26% of all āuninsuredsā are eligible for Medicaid/SCHIP/etc. and only need to sign up at time of treatment to receive benefits. 8 Census data also does not reflect the portion of the 22.1 million or 47% that reported being āfull time employed during the yearā but was temporarily between jobs that provide 71% of the nationās medical insurance. It seems reasonable to estimate that up to 10 million or 22% uninsureds would be so classified in non-recessionary periods. 5
Another consideration is that most uninsured people actually receive āfreeā emergency and some periodic life-sustaining care. Those services are course not āfreeā because their costs are passed on to the insured in the form of higher charges. Most healthcare providers tend to earn 5% to 10% net return on total revenue. Thus cannot absorb the costs of providing āno chargeā services to 35 million or 12% of the population without reducing the quality and availability of services they now provide, stop doing business, or become government entities. Can you picture the devastating effects of the latter? Considering the above:
The facts indicate 7-9 million or less American citizens are actually problematic uninsureds. This reflects perhaps 20-25% of the 35 million reported by the Census Bureau who are unable to afford purchasing coverage on a long-term basis. Anyone that claims 47 million uninsureds is either ill-informed, fooling themselves for ideological reasons, or is purposely trying to mislead and manipulate the public.”
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor/2009/06/the-deception-of-the-47-million-uninsured/