Have your insulin at the ready…
I have to think that intimation of death expressed itself, not only in the courage and dignity with which he went about his own business, but in his considerate treatment of others, even his adversaries. How could it not? Much of the preposterousness of politics stems from the participants’ lunatic enlargement of the stakes, the “this is war” mentality with which they justify to themselves each appalling act. How childish these games must seem, when you are fighting for your life.
Indeed, it must.
It’s hypocrites like Jack Layton who are collectively responsible for elevating Canada’s “universal” health care system into an obscene sacred cow that inflicts delayed treatment and premature death on faceless, nameless, uncelebrated Canadians each and every year.
And may he and his pal Tommy rot in hell for it.
“How childish these games must seem, when you are fighting for your life.”
That cliche probably rings true for 99 per cent of humanity. But jack was playing that game while dying, and after death itself. I think it’s fair to say he had no higher values than winning those games.
There was a headline this morning on CBC et al saying that the Libyans are asking for help from various countries and what they want from Canada is help establishing a world class healthcare system.
My first thought was “the Libyans are so f*cked” if this is what they want from Canada
Growing Health care costs..
..or the growth of the bureaucratic/administrative tail that wages the health care dog……
We have a maturing demographic but the ratio of paper shufflers to care providers is growing faster.
“The truth is precisely the opposite. Everyone in the Canadian health-care system, from top to bottom – from doctor, to nurse, to bureaucrat, to cleaner, to kitchen staff – has a guaranteed profit, guaranteed payment, often in wages that eclipse those in the private sector, regardless of quality or timeliness of patient care.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Posted by Kate at August 19, 2007 1:54 PM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How true!
Blame it to bad Doctors and University of Toronto and other University in Ontario and board of education
not to health care
health care and nurses are ok but doctors some are stings…..
main problmes are bad doctors who give bad medicine or no medicine
there is international medicine and pharmacutical industry need to work not to trick people for sell drugs to made people more sick
health care systems in Ontario are ok recently
The essential thing is to find a Republican candidate who will kill this Health Care bill. (So not Romney.)
I know, but if it isn’t killed in the States now then it won’t ever be killed in Canada.
A hypocrit and a liar.
from Coynes blog comments.
He was asked repeatedly during the campaign about his health. And he always replied that the Drs. had given him a clean bill of health, that his PSA was zero. Was he pulling the wool over our eyes, or was he really of that mind? He said his 2nd cancer was unrelated to the first. Some have wondered if it was AIDS. Is there truth to that rumour.
Im thinking the only way out of this lie would be to involk the aids story.
How come no one ever called him John?
Douglas .. Layton … They were commies and they were not good for you …. that’s all.
Kate, exactly, Tommy Douglas is not dead enough.
Without going into a byte consuming detail, having my mother in the wrong ward with a different doctor, some from Ottawa and Calgary, every week for almost seven months before she passed away in May 2003 cured me of any illusions about our North Korean style healthcare. Finally in the last month, when as it turned out too late, we convinced them to have one of the RUH’s teaching doctors take her under his wing. He finally determined that she should have been in a different ward and been treated for something else other than what they were treating her for.
Even without our huge immigrant intake, health care in Canada would be in trouble. Immigration makes it much worse.
We can’t discuss health care during elections and we can’t discuss it between elections. I shudder to think what it will take to get this topic on the public agenda. Certainly it won’t be an uprising by sick people because, well, they are sick. And most Canadians have no first-hand experience with any other health care system so they cannot compare and just accept the propaganda of the left that ours is world class and defines us as a country. A sacred cow in other words.
I just don’t see any end to this problem of poorer and poorer health care delivery at ever-increasing costs. It is scary and it is killing people.
Still waiting for the real cause of Jack Layton’s death.
Did I miss it?
Far too often I hear from friends of medicare, and I’m paraphrasing, “let’s fix healthcare, but don’t change anything.”
Why does it matter who delivers the care at the end? I don’t care if it’s a Catholic hospital, a Jewish facility or an American hospital. I just want to get better. We have a fee schedule for dental care, why not healthcare? Perhaps we could use the Alberta education model and have the money follow the patient rather than hurling a few billion at a particular region and telling them to spend it wisely. The PUBLIC sector unions see that massive amount and wet themselves demanding raises, but I digress.
I’ve heard many options thrown around, but that one, to me at least, is the most workable. Jack and Tommy, RIP wherever you are.
The subject of health care in Canada is settled. We have a consensus. Only the deniers of the Fraser Institute and racist bloggers are evil enough to question its sanctity. They want American-style, for profit, dying in the waiting room, oops…that’s …Calgary…Toronto….Vancouver….Regina………, Never Mind….
Our healthcare system is indeed a sacred cow.
A cow that is so sacred it’s been brought into the house for protection and it’s wrecking the place at great cost while being milked for all it’s worth by Canada’s socialists.
And may he and his pal Tommy rot in hell for it.
It’s burn in hell.
The body rots in the grave, the soul BURNS in hell.
Just say’in.
My only hope is that one of my kids goes into any branch of the medical field because, like all bureaucratic systems, your level of service is determined by your connections (or bribery in the case of Quebec).
Talk to nurses from Canada who work in the US and then come back to visit a family member in a Canadian hospital. I have talked to two and both were disgusted at the quality of care and lack of timely diagnostics.
Blame it to bad Doctors and University of Toronto and other University in Ontario and board of education
not to health care
health care and nurses are ok but doctors some are stings…..
main problmes are bad doctors who give bad medicine or no medicine
there is international medicine and pharmacutical industry need to work not to trick people for sell drugs to made people more sick
health care systems in Ontario are ok recently
Can you not ban the chronic and obvious trolling?
this guy is on every thread, should be pretty obvious what he’s doing, ban the troll
When I lived in Abbotsford I sat in Emergency many times with clients in my care for as long as 10 hrs, 4 to 6 hours the norm, before they got to see a Doctor. I dislocated my shoulder, 3 hrs in emergency before a doctor reset it (did the same in Mexico, 1 hr and it was reset). 2 referrals to get to see a specialist took 8 months for one and a year the other and this was faster than most as it was a WCB claim. My mother was given up on by 3 doctors who told us she was dying, as she was too old (84) luckily my American brother in law a nurse, pushed for more, and another doctor did not conform to the rationed care for seniors and she was sent to another city’s hospital for dialysis, (our hospital in a city of 40,000 did not even have a dialysis machine). She is still going strong 4 ½ years later.
“Buy all the smokes you want. Buy all the alcohol you want. Buy all the food you want. You can buy any drug you want and as much as you want. You can sit on your arse all day and receive tax payers money, but Damn It!, if you think you can purchase all the healthcare you want we will destroy you. If you believe it is your right to healthcare then you can just take your money outside our borders,… that is of course if you can afford it. Otherwise get in line you little piece of sh1#, and take it as we give it.”
Canadian Healthcare
The left has efd up our health care institution royally. Given our current system, I’m not sure if a “change for the worst” would apply.
Those that derail the health care debate for ideological reasons or for personal gain quite simply have blood on their hands.
The union goons who screech “American style health care” every time anyone mentions improving our system are responsible for un-needed suffering.
The idiots like Paul Martin and Danny Williams who champion our health care system while using the US system cause people to suffer and die.
They all have blood on their hands.
@ LC Bennett, that reminds me. In late fall 2009 one of our daughters-in-law’s parents went to Palm Springs for a holiday and her father came down with a severe illness. I can not remember which, but it was something like West Nile and many people here in Canada have died of it. In any case he was in ACU in the hospital there for about a month until he was well enough to be airlifted to Richmond BC for a week or so and then to the Chilliwack hospital until he was discharged. He was in all three hospitals for about six weeks.
The net result of this without going into detail was that the family’s opinion of US health care was that it is great and ours not so much.
One luck they had purchased travel insurance.
You’re exactly right Kate. Cdns are delusional, and unwilling to hear or discuss anything that threatens their national myths- “best healthcare in the world ” is only one of them.
Indeed. May the souls of Tommy Douglas and John Layton
burn in Hell for eternity.
As for their bodies rotting – weren’t they cremated?
from the time I walked into the GP’s office till I started my cancer treatments was 5 months, I wonder if a pregnant woman who was 5 months on would have to wait 5 months for an abortion paid for with my tax dollars?????
“When I lived in Abbotsford….. My mother was given up on”
I’m generally as free-market and right wing as one can find, but my experience was completely different. My mother is 86 and lives in Abbotsford. In the last year she has undergone a radical mastectomy and a heart valve replacement. She is now being treated for a squamous cell carcinoma on her nose.
Abbotsford has a new general hospital and I have to say the level of care and the caring of the staff has been as first rate as the facility itself. I bang on the government and the public sector unions as much as anyone, but I have to admit that public health care has worked pretty well for our family – including home care follow up, access to meals on wheels, etc.
Frankly I’m amazed that her health care has not been ‘rationed’ given her age and overall health issues. I find myself asking how as a society, we will be able to provide that level of care to a rapidly aging demographic. It’s a conversation we’re going to have to have and it won’t be comfortable. Just my two cents worth.
Despite anecdotes claiming otherwise, many studies have shown that US health care rates quite low compared to other developed countries and always lower than Canadian health care. Do your own research…Google is your friend.
People try really hard in our system. They try so hard, with so little cooperation, so little thanks, so little resources, they are burning out one at a time.
They are not being replaced, either. That is by design. Because in the Canadian system, doctors generate COSTS to the system by seeing patients, not income. Therefore fewer doctors means LESS COST.
Everybody got that? Its important. Think about it a little, and then think about the guys who set that up and the POS political parties who keep it in place. Of whom Jack! Layton was a prime example.
Incidentally, I should add that over 50% of new doctors are -female-. And while this does not make them worse doctors, it does mean they will work about half what male doctors do. Because they have kids to look after, and they aren’t inclined to work the insane 100 hour weeks men frequently do. Two girls work about the same lifetime hours as one boy.
Just another gift from your well meaning central planning we-know-better-than-you social engineers, in the name of gender equity.
I’ve done my own research Iberia, at considerably greater length than yours I’ll wager.
My results show you’re a damn liar. Back under your bridge.
I read a letter in the National Post from a physician who gave his name and location. This was about a week ago. He pointed out the idea that some people have if something is for free. He was saying that some persons will just go and partake of the service- because it is available. Often for trivial things.
He plead for the reinstatement of a small user fee for these type of visits. Said that when such a modest fee was asked for, there was a drastic reduction in applicants for emergency etc.
I have only been three times to what is called in my adopted city as “Murge”. A long time ago, I sat there with a sudden blood clot in my eye. I thought I would go blind if not treated right away. People chatted and chuckled amicably as I sat there.
A tear started down my cheek, the place was crowded. The nurse saw me by chance and without any ado went back to the desk. I was called in over all the others. Not to worry, I was told by the doctor. Follow instructions and go home. He was right (silly me).
How lucky I was. Years ago it had happened. Last time in this year, I visited “Murge” again. I waited six hours, booked myself out and was not seen. Luckily drinking lots of water as previously advised, did clear up my problem. After elective surgery that morning, I was passing blood. Again not to worry, started to clear up in two days. But the agony of not knowing…… Enough said.
I can believe the World Health Organization, the OECD, studies by governments and insurance companies…or I can believe “The Phantom”. Hahaha.
“…or I can believe “The Phantom”. Hahaha.”
Sure Iberia, I’ve only worked at PT in hospitals in Ontario, New York and Arizona. What the hell would I know about it? And all the other doctors and nurses who post here, obviously no clue right?
Still no word from you on patients being calculated as a cost in the Canadian health system. Guess that kind of thing isn’t important in you universe, eh?
My advise, stay healthy. The alternative could get… ugly.
National Post, Friday, Sep. 2. Karen Selick weighs in on the Dr. Dockrill case:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/09/01/karen-selick-medicare-cant-heal-itself/
“Danielle Martin, spokeswoman for Canadian Doctors for Medicare, was quoted in a recent National Post article, calling Dr. Dockrill’s alleged conduct ‘unethical.'”
To which Selick responds:
“Forbidding people to use their own hard-earned resources to optimize their family’s health is what’s unethical.”
Exactly. Medicare is first and foremost about controlling the masses. If it results in deprivation rather than abundance – which collectivism generally does – the socialists don’t care, as long as they have power.
As for Jack Layton’s final illness, I’m glad it was kept secret, otherwise it might have brought a massive sympathy vote, and the country would have been screwed.
In my dreams, I wake up to find that Karen Selick has been appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. One doesn’t have to have been a judge to get the nod. In fact Ian Binnie, one of the two justices who are retiring, was never a judge before his appointment.
It wasn’t long ago I respected Andrew Coyne.
Phantom – yes, why can’t people just admit that most women are going to wind up looking after kids? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s better than neglecting them. But it makes women an unreliable serious hire in a high-intensity profession like medicine. Luckily it’s all free money, right?
Just back from another 13 hour shift in the hospital and the only reason the Canadian system functions so well is that there are doctors who will work crazy hours for 25% of what they’d make in the US (I am looking). When the Canadian health care system runs out of doctors willing to work 100 hour weeks, then the system will break down completely.
Recently I read that Quebec medical residents had gotten a court decision that working more than some ridiculously small number of hours/week (I think it was 48) was “unconstitutional”. Welcome to the 4-5 year “family practice” residency as that’s how long it’s going to take to get the same experience as those of us who were happy to have a short 88 hour week during our internships have.
The easiest way to destroy a profession is to increase the number of women in it as women are much less likely to put the same effort into their work. With a few exceptions, women aren’t nearly as single minded and workaholic as men are. The UBC medical school is now 60% female. If I was male and applying for medical school now I’d be raising hell if I was rejected.
We have people who shouldn’t be in hospital still there as they refuse to pay the $30/day that it would cost them to go to a convalescent care facility – if they were charged some fraction of the $1500/day it costs to keep them in hospital, there would be a stampede out of the hospital doors. Then there’s the ripoff that union “healthcare” workers exact from people who are “rich” charging them $400/month for 30 minutes of home help a couple of times/week. Hell, you could probably get a fulltime employee from the Philippines for that amount if you covered their room and board.
The Canadian system is broken and the only thing that keeps me coming back every day is that I still get a rush from dealing with complex pathophysiology. I hate bureaucracy and that’s one of the main things that’s keeping me in Canada as, unless you do totally private pay medicine in the US, paperwork there is far more of a nightmare. Also, the extreme shortage of doctors where I live means I can tell administrators to f-off and not lose my hospital privileges.
Welcome to Canada where you’re free to spend your money on dope and hookers but don’t you dare try to buy healthcare.
My liberal mother, who lives in Ohio thinks highly of ‘Free Healthcare’ up here. Even after I explained to her that she could not get timely access to healthcare, nor get access to ALL healthcare, she still thinks it’s better because everyone gets the same healthcare.
And that sums up how I think ALL liberals think. It’s OK if everyone is miserable, not just a few.
“As for their bodies rotting – weren’t they cremated?”
~John Lewis
Could be, I was too busy washing my hair to pay attention.
a better phrase for jacko may well have been “too much alive”….
Was Jack a dead man campaigning?
The public has a right to know if Layton was on death’s door during the election
By Charles Adler, QMI Agency
While some people are trying to shotgun a marriage between Grits and Dippers, can we ask some questions about a different kind of merger?
When do we get to merge accountability with ethics in the biggest political story of the year: Dead man campaigning?
Don’t we have the right to know if Jack Layton was on death’s door when he was knocking on your door?
If it seems like it was only yesterday, it’s because the May 2 election was only a few months ago. Even in a country with short-term memory, nobody can forget how physically hobbled he was throughout the campaign. Every scene of him getting off a plane or bus or podium had Jack leaning on his cane.
Ever the ham, Jack would morph into Moses for the NDP worshippers, waving his cane like a staff. It was epic Jack. He was possessed, fighting like a man with nothing left to lose.
Nobody likes to be the skunk at the picnic and so at those lengthy news conferences, there was reluctance to ask: Is there another cancer stalking Moses’ body? Bone cancer? Why did he need the hip surgery?
Did the public not have a right to know? If you’re asking voters to sign up for four years, are you obliged to tell them you may very well be signing off much sooner than that?
I am not here to posthumously stuff words in his mouth. But would it have been a bad thing for Jack to share the following words during the campaign?
“My fellow Canadians. I honestly don’t know how much time I have left. None of us really do. But based on the battle I am having with my own body, I may not be around much longer.
“I promise you this though. For as long as I can draw a breath, I will be thinking of you, working for you and working the hardest for those Canadians who need us the most.”
Since it’s been more than ten days since we got the tragic news of our friend’s demise, is it OK to ask the question, why wasn’t Jack a little more forthcoming? Should we stay in denial and pretend he had no idea what was going on? Denial is a very stinky dungeon.
The NDP never ceases to lecture the governments of the day about ethics, accountability and transparency. They owe it to the country to be honest, ethical, accountable and transparent about life and death.
For the NDP, the election campaign was all about Jack’s personality. If he didn’t want to be more candid about his ability to do the job he campaigned for, can his party at least do the right thing now?
At the state funeral, Stephen Lewis smugly talked about the NDP aspiring for a more generous Canada.
How about being generous with the facts? Did the NDP vote to defeat the government because their leader was terminal?
What really killed Jack Layton? What did the NDP know about his prognosis? When did they know it?
Memo to the NDP: Canadian taxpayers spent millions of dollars on a funeral your party turned into an infomercial. We can’t bill you for it. But you owe Canada honest answers about the final days of Saint Jack.
If and when legal action is taken against Dr. Dockrill, a defense fund should be set up with donors names attached to act as a petition as well. I no longer require the services this good doctor provides [until I have grandchildren I suppose] but I would gladly support her fight. It’s more the principle that’s involved here.
@phantom
Do you have some evidence, aside from anecdata laced with ad homs ? Iberia said what was basically a truism , start googling and the empiracal suggests Canada rates pretty well compared to the US. Sure if you have money you have more access to more advanced care in the USA but Americans come to Canada and other places all the time for care and drugs – how does that fit into your little worldview?
Otherwise generally back to the classlessness I associate with this site. The brief holiday of manners around Laytons death is now evidently over.
Damn Bismarck and Romney for doing something about healthcare !
OK, I have some comments on this matter.
As I have noted here a number of times,I was in a car accident in California about ten years ago. After twelve hours of treatment, I was discharged.
Never mind the useless tests that led to a $35,000 bill – they charged me $100 for a single dose of insulin. $100. I go to my local Shoppers, and get 100 doses for $80.
This is what happens when you disconnect price and service.
gray said: “Sure if you have money you have more access to more advanced care in the USA but Americans come to Canada and other places all the time for care and drugs – how does that fit into your little worldview?”
Dear Lefty. These are the facts.
1) If you have money in the USA, you can buy healthcare. Any kind you need, as much as you need, when you need it. “Having money” is defined as being a car mechanic or working at Walmart, it does not require you be a millionaire.
2) If you do not have money (as in, you are a worthless sack of sh1t who smokes crack for a living or an illegal Mexican who snuck over the border for the free Gringo healthcare), you will be GIVEN healthcare. Any kind you need, as much as you need, when you need it. The decor may not be as nice at the county hospital, compared to the private hospital.
3) In Canada, if you have money you -cannot- buy healthcare. At all. Unless you drive to the USA, you get to wait for whatever they decide to give you, if anything, right beside the wankers who smoke crack for a living. Every hospital in Canada is about equal with the county hospital/VA, we don’t have the option to pay extra and get a doctor that isn’t a shambling burn-out fueled by coffee and sheer intestinal fortitude.
This very thread contains an example of what happens to doctors who try to deliver the best medicine has to offer instead of the usual shake-and-bake lowest common denominator. Read the article about Dr. Karen Dockrill above, then get back to me on the whole single payer thing ok?
4) Americans come to Canada for drugs because of the PRICE CONTROLS which our government forced on the drug companies. However, Canadians regularly go to the USA to get drugs which are not sold in Canada -at all- due to A) PRICE CONTROLS and B) not being allowed on formulary in Canada because of the -expense-. As in, it costs too much and y’all aren’t worth it.
5) I can Google up any number of completely contradictory studies on this subject. All it demonstrates is there’s a lot of propagandists out there with an ax to grind. The medical literature is littered with studies which are completely false, utterly fabricated, bought and paid for by one political group or another. If you want an example, look up pretty near anything about guns or smoking in PubMed.
If you have a specific paper in mind, post it. Be prepared to have it dissected by experts, that’s who you’re talking to here. Experts.
In the meantime, you can do this comparison. Go to any hospital in dying, depressed, post-industrial Buffalo NY and count the number of ambulances idling in the parking lot with patients in them. Then go to Toronto, the richest, biggest city in Canada, and do the same. I’ll tell you ahead what you’re going to find: zero in Buffalo, as many as ten in Toronto. That’s not an anecdote, that’s business as usual.
Or you could just compare waiting lists for elective surgery in Buffalo and Toronto. Hint, they don’t actually have a waiting list in Buffalo. Hint hint, hip replacements are considered “elective” in Ontario unless they are the result of acute fracture.
6) Jack! Layton is as much to blame for the continuing destruction of Medicine as a profession in this country as any other Lefty politician. Without guys like Jack!, Dr. Karen Dockrill would be a hero instead of up on charges and I’d be able to get an MRI today instead of six weeks from now.
Don’t get sick…
KevinB said: “This is what happens when you disconnect price and service.”
Actually, that’s what happens when you have to soak paying customers to cover the horde of not-paying ones. You should see what they bill insurance companies for insulin.
In the old days there were charities to cover the indigent, and indigents were few. These days creative accounting is the name of the game, and indigents are half the patient load.
But they mean well, and that’s all that really counts, right? Don’t be so stingy Kevin, your over-inflated hospital bill probably paid for three or four nice Mexican ladies to deliver their anchor babies in California before heading back to Tijuana. You feeeeel better now? ~:)
It will too late once the boomers all start getting sick and dying. They’ll be outraged but it’ll be too late. You’ve all been suckered dumb asses.
Phantom
Nearly every developed country in the world does it the Canadian/Euro way. The USA is the exception.
Don’t straw man your argument too much btw.
The USA is the exception.
Takes longer to imprison a truly free, decentralized, country. And then there’s that darned Constitution…
I believe Europe has a dual system. We have a Cuban/North Korean system.
gray said, amazingly: “Nearly every developed country in the world does it the Canadian/Euro way. The USA is the exception.”
Ghod you’re dense. The only two other countries with Canadian-style single payer healthcare are North Korea and Cuba. That’s IT, dewd. All others, European or otherwise, are [gasp!] Two Tier.
Yes gray, the hated, evile, loathsome TWO TIER system is the world wide socialist norm. The United States is -also- a two tier system, with public and private options. The difference between the US and Europe is mostly federal control. The Obamacare debacle is the Feds seizing control of what was previously State and County level.
Now, you wanted some -evidence- from a linky? Howe about front page above-the-fold from today’s National Post?
//news.nationalpost.com/2011/09/03/cancer-patients-forced-to-mortgage-houses-to-pay-for-u-s-techniques-canada-won%E2%80%99t-fund/
I believe Europe has a dual system. We have a Cuban/North Korean system.
Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at September 3, 2011 1:32 PM
Sure, tell us all about it, kulak, cradle to grave leech that you are, tell us all about Cuba and North Korea. Still dipping into that NISA account?
Is it me, or has the quality of the trolls around here degenerated steeply of late?