How does a “not-for-profit” monopoly run out of money?
[The Vancouver Island Health Authority] plans to do 4,400 fewer of the magnetic resonance imaging scans to help cover a $45-million budget shortfall, figures released yesterday show.
The cuts likely mean patients will wait in pain even longer for treatment and surgery — and already they are waiting twice as long as last year.
VIHA spokeswoman Shannon Marshall said patients are being booked for March, six months away, for elective MRI scans. Last year, wait times for MRI scans were only three months.
[…]
Last year, medical imaging in VIHA went 9.2 per cent over budget, to $21.2 million instead of the planned $19.4 million. The figures released yesterday showed 18,100 MRI scans were budgeted for last year, but 22,567 were performed.
(A question for Island readers – are your dental offices out there mothballing x-ray equipment?)
h/t Arnie
And Obummer will have Americans believe that universal health care does not result in rationing of care. I hope Americans are taking notice.
Now, I know that it says that doing 4,400 fewer MRI scans will “help cover a $45-million budget shortfall”, not completely cover it, but $45 million divided by 4,400 is $10,227. I would have thought that an MRI scan cost about one-tenth that. If so, that’s really not much help.
[The Vancouver Island Health Authority]
has a new expense to cope with—the Carbon Tax—which seems to be about the same as their projected deficit…….
‘The Canadians with cash used to go to the States for MRI, that has to be urgently fixed’, decided Obama…
“How?” you ask? Look at the subtitle above.
“Too much democracy…..”
Don’t you see, that solves the aging population problem.
I’d rather pony up for the difference than die waiting.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars is the VIHA paying in carbon taxes?
At least in BC there is no shortage of private MRI scanners and people can usually get an MRI in less than a week if they want to pay for it. It’s amazing how fast patients can come up with $1000 when they find out their MRI is scheduled for sometime next year. MRI’s seem to be trendy now and most of the time I’m trying to convince people that they don’t need an MRI for their particular problem and that they should spend the money on medication instead.
My prediction is that the number of MRI’s is going to go over budget again since MRI is such a usefull imaging modality. I can’t recall when I last saw a conventional angiogram done on a patient when the standard of care is now to do an MRI angiogram (MRA) which gives just as good pictures but without the risk of causing renal failure from the contrast dye. The bean counters that look at hospital budgets seem incapable of seeing the bigger picture such as going over the radiology budget to do an MRA rather than conventional angiogram might save money overall if one doesn’t have a patient with contrast dye induced kidney failure stay an extra couple of weeks in hospital. In private systems such risk/benefit calculations are routine.
Exactly what I was thinking … carbon ponsi scheme took in how much $$$$ in and where is it going to?
Jackasses.
What is the point of doing the diagnostic procedures (MRI, CT,etc) if the doctors cannot get OR time due to lack of funding for support personnel? (nurses, anethesiologists, physio therapist, etc.) The cost saving cut backs of the 90’s are being paid for today in the inability to provide services for which the government has created a monopoly through the Canada Health Act. The required changes will similarly take decades and will be fought vigorously by those with a stake in it. (nurses, health authorities etc) The needs of the patient will always be the last thing considered.
mid island mike
While having a blood sample taken two days ago, the young lady at the clinic told me that they are “block funded” the same as all hospitals in Ontario and when the funding runs out the company she works for “eats” the cost of any further clinical blood work.
How is that possible, I wondered.
She said that the “imaging” division of the company in fact funded the shortfall.
Another interesting note from the recent BC budget.
The Gov’t figures state that: The HST will cost me about $190 per year. The increase of the personal exemption will benefit me about $95 per year and the BC MSP fees are going up as well to the tune of $72 per year. So my net BC tax increase will be about $167 per year or $14/ month. Then they reduce the services they provide. Go figure.
Maybe all those arts groups that screamed over funding cuts, (which have been restored), will experience a new sense of priorities when individuals try to access the health care system and are put on hold for a couple years. Maybe they will realize access to health care is more important than access to theater productions and music concerts.
mid island mike (Vancouver island)
Yep, brings back not so fond memories of my mother in her final years way back in 1998.
Nope, you need to wait 9 months for a diagnostic scan, before you even get a treatment plan.
Of course in 9-12 months the patient may be dead.
This was about the time that I went Chalk River ‘nuclear’ and fired off letters to the PMO and 24 others up and down the chain of command.
I packed up my mother the next day marched into admitting at the hospital with copies of my ‘nuclear’ letter.
The head nurse reviewed my letter and said she would find a bed for my mother PDQ.
After a 3 week stay she finally started to get the palliative care that should have started 9 months earlier.
The doc was not to pleased and said I was a ‘queue jumper’. Too bad, but I only had one mother to spare.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht-Commander in Chief
Army Group “True North”
1st St. Nicolaas Army
Same old crap here, nothing is going to change until the system turns to “a patient is the customer not a cost” attitude.
Under the present system hospitals can make more money and stay in their budget if they stop treating folks altogether. As it is, with a budget of $xxx dollars allotted for say MRI, if they work less hours and treat less patients then bingo!
The system should be more like “We gave MRIs to YYY number of patients so Mr Government, you owe us yyy x $ per procedure = $ our budget amount for MRIs”.
Let me explain what is going on. The health care budget in BC actually went up this year from last year by .5 billion dollars – just not fast enough to pay for the increase in salaries, population growth and mission creep.
In the private world when cost pressures come businesses find ways to be more efficient, more productive and cut marginal services. In the public world the bureaucrats that run these health authorities and hospital send out press releases claiming catastrophe if the government does not provide more money. There is no attempt to find ways to provide more services for less money. Bureaucrats know the public outcry will cause the politicians to relent and put in more money. Hence bogus scare stories about cutting 4,400 MRI’s at a cost of $10,000 each when in actual fact they only cost $1,000.
The reason bureaucrats do this is because it almost always works and there is no downside. When politicians try calling the bureaucrats on their bogus claims the bureaucrats suggest (with a compliant media) that politicians know nothing about running hospitals (or schools, or social services, etc).
Bureaucrats are generally paid more if they have more staff and provide more services. Once created no government run department is ever cut or shrunk without a huge fight. This is one reason why I am strongly against the government running anything.
Do not believe the claims of these bureaucrats – all they are going to do is get your taxes raised and the deficit to go higher to fund their poorly run empires. When bureaucrats start whining we must demand that our politicians fire them and privatize the services.
I have an idea… lower the MSP exemption level for income (reduce level by 10%) so more people pay than now (they get money back on the Climate Credit and GST each quarter to pay for it) and increase the rates for employer paid MSP by 2%.
Exempt the Health Care Industry from the Carbon Tax.
That will help, but fundamenatally we need more technical staff in the hospitals, sounds counter intuitive but the retension wages and overtime costs on technical medical services such as MRIs and Lab Work outsourcing is killing budgets based on services demand.
Next understand that during a recession there is always increased demand for medical services as people have more time to get things checked out. It sounds silly but people will put off check-ups and elective procedures because they have no way to be off work.
Let me guess… if we examined the budget, we would not find any reductions in ministerial salary expense.
We die early so that the bureaucrats may live in comfort.
Fire -everyone- in the management chain above the level of secretary. That ought to free up some dough, and there won’t be any noticeable change in services. Secretaries do all the work and make all the decisions.
No, I’m not really kidding.
Add a 5-10% patient co-pay. That ought to get rid of some frequent flyers.
License some new MRI sites, or God forbid remove the licensing restrictions altogether and just inspect for safety and quality assurance.
Three things which will not occur to anyone in the government of BC without a public revolt. And by public revolt I mean where people break stuff. Not suggesting that would be a good thing mind you, just saying that’s what it would take to get these moron’s attention.
Excellent. I hope it hurts. These are the wages of liberal stupidity.
Those of you waiting for a service that is provided on the same day in the States might want to look at the money your liberal friends ‘invested’ in gun control. 2 billion dollars at last count…probably three billion now…how many MRI budgets could you cover with money like that?
Enjoy the wait, bungholes.
The rest of you that live in better places might want to take note of what is happening to the stupid kids in BC and take the appropriate steps.
> just not fast enough to pay for the increase in salaries
INCREASE? In this economy, when there are pay cuts introduced left right and centre? Oh, I forgot! The government employees are unfamiliar with the concept of pay cuts…
“stupid kids’, Jim?
The backlash against crappy government medical services (as if there are any government services that aren’t crappy) will begin soon. The boomers have traditionally gotten whatever they want based of sheer numbers. I don’t believe that has changed.
Those Boomers are all about 60 years old, they are all headed for health problems, they all vote and a lot of them have money.
Things might be changing soon.
Americans should be horrified when they look at our health care system and then consider what their super socialist president and his thugs want for them.
I believe that’s called rationing.
Canadian health-care is an oxymoron.
Fritz at 11:41 –
Note that the aricle does not say MRIs cost $10K each. “The health authority plans to do 4,400 fewer of the magnetic resonance imaging scans to help cover a $45-million budget shortfall, figures released yesterday show.” It says “to help cover”. This is not to say that the VIHA is either right or wrong but mis-stating the problem will not help.
The Phantom at 12:32 – “Fire everyone in the management chain above the level of secretary. That ought to free up some dough, and there won’t be any noticeable change in services. Secretaries do all the work and make all the decisions.
No, I’m not really kidding.”
You may indeed not be kidding but if not your naivete is showing. ;>) For example, it is not possible to fire anyone in a hospital without arbitration (demanded by labour department, not health department) which can easily last many hundreds of management hours, over perhaps two years. Which secretary will you assign to that duty? They will without a doubt work diligently without any management supervision. While we’re at it, how about turfing all those expensive RNs? Surely the LPNs can cope on their own.
I’m not trying to make light of this very real problem but merely to point out that there are no easy fixes.
Cheers, Eric (ex RN)
”
My wife needed an MRI, in July see was told likely by Oct. Local costs for private was $1300, seeing a private doctor was another $800. She flew to Malaysia, MRI, neurologist and about 10 other tests was $600 cdn. She got all the tests done in the first week of arriving.
My wife needed an MRI, in July see was told likely by Oct. Local costs for private was $1300, seeing a private doctor was another $800. She flew to Malaysia, MRI, neurologist and about 10 other tests was $600 cdn. She got all the tests done in the first week of arriving.
I generally file comments like this under…
Are you going to take the wage cut necessary to meet this price structure too?
In other words, don’t forget that our higher than average wages do come at a high cost.
Reducing the number of humans = reducing the carbon foot print. Geez some people just don’t get it.
“[The Vancouver Island Health Authority]
has a new expense to cope with—the Carbon Tax—which seems to be about the same as their projected deficit…….”
Over here in the Fraser Health Authority, it’s the carbon tax again that’s causing the deficit. Schools, too. And remember, that carbon tax will rise sharply in the next little while. This is only the beginning.
Stupid Gordon Campbell. Stupid.
But we have no one to vote for here in B.C. YET. If the Conservatives could get their act together and put forward a decent well-spoken leader, now is their time to grow. Now is their time to build a strong base. Because no one with any brains wants the NDP back in. There’s bad and then there’s REALLY BAD.
Momar 1:08pm (as if there are any government services that aren’t crappy)
I’m a soldier. You get way more than you pay for in defence. My service is not crappy nor is my aim.
Check out any hospital staff parking lot on a weekday and then again on a weekend and see just what the level of front line patient care your are getting… and the ratio is?
I agree with Soccermom.
I have to vote for the rock because the hard place takes up even more room in my wallet.
There is no such thing as a conservative party in BC.
Did those journalistic betters of ours really write that last year the wait was ONLY three months?
You want better health care:
– SUE once and SUE often. SUE over everything. This pressure on the system will bring change.
– Tell the media.
– Fire most of the hospital bureaucracy. They are expensive and useless.
– Get rid of most of the eclectic health care positions. They are union job creations that waste money and take nurses away from front-line care.
– Make hospital funding based on efficiency and quality of care.
Sparky doctors in Canada pay into a fund that exists to provide them with unlimited legal funds if they are sued. I have no idea how much is in said fund currently but I suspect it totals the high millions. You don’t sue an individual doctor in Canada you take on a filthy rich organization, that’s why malpractice rarely raises it’s head in Canada.
My wife was told to wait three months for an “elective” CT scan in Ottawa because she did not have any evidence of serious disease. When she finally had the CT scan, the doctors discovered she had terminal cancer. Doctors in Japan where we were forced to go for treatment because it was not available in Canada told us that if she’d had the CT scan within days of when if was first requested, reatment could have started sooner and she would have lived for many months longer.
How does a “not-for-profit” monopoly run out of money?
When it kills off sufficient numbers of it’s revenue generating patrons.
Cjunk has the story of an Ont man that went to the US when he was suspected of having a brain tumor. He is fighting the Ont. gov’t for repayment.
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2009/09/ill-have-nowhere-to-send-canadians.html
Cjunk has the story of an Ont.man that went to the US for a suspected brain tumor. He is now pursuing reimbursement for the cost.
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2009/09/ill-have-nowhere-to-send-canadians.html
The irony is too delicious:
As I read this thread, I was watching “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut”. All Americans with any Canadian blood will be transported to death camps. Oh, did I say “death camps”? I meant “happy camps”.
The only reason that the lieberal party is in power in BC is because of BC residents (like those above) who vote for the lieberals because “it’s better than the NDP”. BC lieberal and NDP governments are both statist kleptocracies; the lieberals pay off their friends and the NDP the unions. I vowed never to vote for the BC lieberal party when I found out how often the federal lieberals and BC lieberals share office space. If you vote for Gordon Campbell’s party you’re also voting for Johnny Cretin’s party. I see absolutely no difference between the two parties and both are out to gouge the BC taxpayer for as much as possible.
With the @#$% carbon tax and now a proposed HST I might be leaving BC to move to Alberta. It’s nice to be in that position as there seems to be a shortage of doctors everywhere.
In the last BC election I voted for the BC Conservative party. To get rid of the lieberals one might need to have the NDP in power again which really wouldn’t be much different than the current situation. NDP spending excesses pale in comparison to the idiotic financial mess that the lieberals have gotten BC into by wanting to host the winter olympics — I can’t imagine wasting any time on watching this crap. The fast ferries may have been a fiasco but at the end of that project there was at least something tangible unlike the olympics which just produce enormous debt and nothing to show for it a few weeks after the gladiators have left the coliseum.
BC politics consists of trying to come up with a party that will keep the commies out of power. It would be better to try to convince more Albertans to move out here so that the proportion of commie votes decreases. There comes a time when it is necessary to start from the beginning to come up with a free-enterprise pro-freedom party in BC and the BC lieberals definately aren’t the ones. I probably won’t be involved in the process because once I decided to move away from the moonbat infested oceanfront it doesn’t make much difference how far inland I happen to be.
As far as medicine goes, the lieberals and NDP are indistinguishable in terms of their effects on physicians with the lieberals being more offensive with their attempt at controlling physicians with their “health professions act”.
You can buy an MRI in Hull Quebec for $700, I had one there four years ago. If you call today, they will book you in for tomorrow. It’s in a converted service station right across from the Museum.
Cheers,
[quote] You don’t sue an individual doctor in Canada you take on a filthy rich organization, that’s why malpractice rarely raises it’s head in Canada.[/quote] Rose
You are on the wrong side… I only wish that Tort reform in the USA will require that “BOTH” the Doctor & the Regulating agency be sued.
This would eliminate those nonsense law suits that drive up health costs & insurance profits…The Insurance companies now settle cases that don’t have merit..
If the case has legal merit the damages will “dynamically increase” such that the system must address the flaws…
I.e.. The Bernie Madoff legal Pig F*ch would include the SEC and those individuals that took payoffs from both Bernie & the legal Community..
The SEC has a conflict of interest (it pays to have a blind eye) in that if they had done their job the fraud would not have happened… No lawsuits
JMHO