Anyone willing to look at actual data, or listen to real patient stories, has known for years Canadian health care is in perilous territory. Whether it’s ER wait times, hallway health care, surgical backlogs or the severe shortage of family doctors, the system isn’t working.
Unfortunately, any debate about how to fix it was stymied for years by leftist politicians who insisted critiquing Canadian health care was tantamount to treachery. They found it much more politically profitable to accuse Conservatives of wanting to import U.S.-style privatization, despite the fact literally no Conservative politicians were suggesting this.
Now, after years of squandered opportunities to fix our system, we’re instead exporting Canadians to the U.S. system. This week, British Columbia announced it’ll send nearly 5,000 patients over the next two years to the U.S. in order to receive cancer treatment. Aging radiation therapy machines and worker shortages have resulted in untenable wait times and significantly increased risk of poor outcomes, which is health care jargon for Canadians dying entirely preventable deaths.
Well, at least we have MAiD.
At the same time, we must consider how broad immigration targets that aim for record numbers of newcomers each year impact the problem. Similar questions swirl in relation to the housing crisis. We’ve failed to match immigration targets with the infrastructure to back them up, which hurts both Canadians and newcomers.
Oh, no. One mustn’t notice the million new elephants in the waiting room.
Or we could just stop getting vaccinated and thereby stop getting cancer to begin with.
It’s okay, Watto, cancer will be a thing of the past throughout all of Canada soon!
“Well, at least we have MAiD.”
yes Kate, when you have a flat tire, put gas in the bitch, as a solution to the flat tire.
Just how stupid are you????
That obviously went right over your head, so I have posted the dictionary definition of sarcasm here for you to ponder…
Sarcasm- harsh, cutting, or bitter derision, often using irony to point out the deficiencies or failings of someone or something: He resorts to sarcasm when he senses he’s losing an argument.
a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark:
a review full of sarcasms.
Are you suggesting Kate advocates euthanasia?
Besides, your analogy is way off; “torch the bitch (presumably your car with a flat tire)” is more like it.
Gym, old chum, just how stupid are you????
You’re so tiresome
To Gym – The comment about MAID was obviously sarcasm, and not to be taken seriously.
GYM must be fwench for Dunning-Kruger.
Gymkanna, as Forest Gump says, you are ” stupid as stupid does “.
Now go back to your milk and cookies.
Add the death-cult green theocracy solutions to energy, agriculture, mining, forestry, and the resource sterilization due to UN agenda 2030 and you have a nation of idiots voting for and succeeding in impoverishment, freezing and starvation.
I’m really looking forward to being a plumber/gasfitter for the masses of non qualified folks who can scarcely scrape together enough cash to have their problems go away. Is the gov’t set to have them pushing papers around a desk and calling it “work”? Terrific for them, but I’m not giving discounts based on sympathy.
Worked with a few people “from away” who the gov’t had said were qualified to work as 4th year in this trade.
I thought they were being paid quite a bit for not really knowing how to do anything in Canada, regardless of how plumbing is done in their shithole country. Maybe nobody will notice that pile of broken / cut out pipes which needed to be redone after Mr. Broken English showed us how it’s done.
Maybe the tax credits make it worth it.
At least the medical profession gets to bury their mistakes after delaying treatment, or sending them south while paying those providers.
Alexsandr Solzhenitzen told of how Soviet soldiers once freed from Nazi captivity in WW2 were shot / imprisoned after seeing how good life was in Germany, in spite of it being wartime. Will those sent south for Canada’s tier 2 unionised medical fiasco be required to sign a non disclosure agreement after seeing how smoothly real hospitals give care outside of tier 2 Canada?
GYM, sometimes print sarcasm isn’t so obvious to everyone
NP says, “This week, British Columbia announced it’ll send nearly 5,000 patients over the next two years to the U.S. in order to receive cancer treatment.”
should have been,,, “This week, the NDP government of British Columbia announced it’ll send nearly 5,000 patients over the next two years to the U.S. in order to receive cancer treatment.”
…”This week, the National Socialist and Workers government of British Columbia…”
All of our systems are messed up. We import millions of immigrants – some who have qualifications that are needed, but many do not. Yet we can’t produce enough Canadians from our school systems to fill the needs of the job market. Many of the immigrants coming have skills in IT which are needed. But why the heck are we importing these individuals with these skills. We spend billions if not trillions of dollars on the K-12 and the post secondary education systems and can’t produce graduates to meet these needs? We could if provinces got serious about doing so. It is way too late to address the skills needed in Grade 10 – those students need to understand maths and sciences in Grade 6 if not earlier. One of the reasons go back to the training of teachers – most teachers don’t have the background to teach maths or sciences and yet the education faculties refused to address this. Consequently we get teachers who have one or two classes in how to teach math, instead of actual courses in doing math.
The solution is NOT to let the federal government get into the k-12 or post secondary education systems because that will be the final nail in the coffin of those systems (no one in the federal government understand anything about how employment or businesses operate). But provinces need to challenge the education systems and their unions/activists and fund only those schools that produce graduates that are prepared to enter demand fields such as medicine, IT, or any of the STEM careers.
I suspect anyone who can make it through 8 years of our education system to become a doctor is already beyond hope.
Immigration is now solely used to fundamentally transform Canadas culture, values, traditions, mores etc. If some come that produce a benefit that’s a side bonus.
Well Blackface face has publicly stated Canada is too white so we know his intention is to fundamentally transform the country.
I was required to take statistics for my degree. Not good at math. Went to high school teachers to get help. They did help, gladly. Too bad I failed that section miserably. Thanks for nothing.
You are also never to notice that, in Thunder Bay, four hospitals were closed in order to have one new “regional hospital” too small to service a community of 110,000 and then the entire population of Northern Ontario was also to be served by this inadequate facility. Thanks Toronto.
I bet the head of that new “regional hospital” continues to get his huge pay and big bonuses
“Hurr durr no American style health care!”
Until you can get the sheep of this country to stop babbling that line in response to any criticism of our precious medicare, no meaningful change will be permitted to take place. Tinker around the edges, perhaps, like BC shipping patients south, but the significant & widespread changes that need to happen are still considered politically untouchable. Things have to, and WILL, get a lot worse before the sheep awaken. If they ever do. This country is so paralyzingly stupid and apathetic that I think it far more likely we collapse to a condition resembling Argentina within a generation.
This is what happens when people in Cabinet are there because of their gender and skin color.
Journalist as Finance Minister
Graphic Designer as Health Minister,
etc, etc,
Pure incompetence.
Bureaucrats running wild as their elected masters know didley squat about anything.
We have got to stop with the affirmative action voting. Women, gays and BIPOC have their own bailiwick, and that’s all they’ll talk about. Today the one qualifying question is ‘ Can a human change their sex? ‘.
Just about 103 years too late.
The “deputy ministers” who are supposed to support the minister in their profiles aren’t much better.
Take for example, the deputy minister of transport, you might think that you’d find an engineer in that role, instead we get this:
Before joining Transport Canada, Arun was the Associate Deputy Minister at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, following two years as the Associate Deputy Minister at Transport Canada.
Before these roles, he was Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer at Global Affairs Canada and was the Deputy Chief Financial Officer at the former Canadian International Development Agency. He also brings experience and knowledge on transportation issues, from his time at the Canadian Transportation Agency from 2002 to 2011.
Arun received the Queen Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013 for his contribution to the federal public service and to his community. He has served on various governance boards and is a sessional lecturer in the School of Public Administration at Carleton University.
Arun is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Carleton University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Ottawa, and an Honours BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
It’s funny how ole’ Rach is running out immigrant physicians with questionable credentials as the solution to all our healthcare concerns. Pretty sure if they were actually qualified the college of physicians and surgeons would have found a way to get them working already as many immigrant doctors already do. Of course, I also think post-secondary education is a racket and half the reason out of country practitioners are discouraged is because they didn’t pay the right people for their education.
Maybe i’m just a cynical old git.
The Canadian Health care system and its political firewall is the embodiment of the politics of envy, resentment, and hatred. The tens of thousands dying while on waiting lists do not disturb its defenders. Empathy is not part of the system. If you want empathy, you have to go the the US for that also. The closest you can get in Canada is gaming the system (jumping the queue) by knowing the right people. The only way the system will change in Canada is if the bodies were stacked at roadside like cordwood.
This part is not correct.
“the system isn’t working”
The system is working as it was designed to work. The health care system in Canada was intended for 100% occupancy with zero surge capability. This was deliberate as a consequence of the desire to reduce taxes to pay for the system, and a desire by socialists to restrict doctors’ income. So when an event occurs like Covid-19 that places unforeseen stress on the system, it can’t cope.
It’s entirely reasonable to argue that Canadian healthcare is failing Canadians of all income levels and locations. It’s entirely reasonable to argue that the system design is seriously flawed. The system is working, but, by design, not very well. Tommy Douglas should have known better. The horrors of the Spanish Influenza occurred in his lifetime, and that was a Black Swan event.
50,000 NBers have no family doctor.
Seniors take up a third of hospital beds.
Our hurry up and wait system has only been like that for 50 years or so.
Canadians be a tad slow.
Canadian Dumbing Down has been the most successful Government initiative ever.
Prove me wrong.
What part of “The system is working as it was designed to work” or ” 100% occupancy with zero surge capability” did you not understand?
How many problems can be swept under the rug until the rug is too lumpy to use?
LOL, you get what you pay for (and vote for).
FWIW – at a recent visit with my optometrist, he noticed I had the beginnings of a cataract in one eye. The easiest place for me to see a specialist is in Kingston (this is in Ontario). I spoke with his receptionist who told me the first appointment she could get for me was two years from now. She is now checking alternative locations. Thanks OHIP.
Red Rachel and her Communist Cabal endlessly whines about the Conservatives wanting to charge for health care which is untrue. She ignores the fact that the system was more broken under her tyranny than under anyone else.
The issue is not the quantum of resources directed to health care, it is how these resources are allocated. Do some diseases get more attention than others? Do certain health care providers receive more compensation than others? Where should health care be provided- home care, clinics or hospitals? These and other serious questions ultimately need to be answered. Do we want a government official or committee to provide answers?
Alternatively, can those with real clinical and patient service knowledge be given the appropriate freedom and incentives to solve these problems?
L – excerpt from the N.P. article comment section:
“It may be time to moderate the pace of immigration in fields outside medicine, the skilled trades and other absolutely essential areas while we catch up. We should also reconsider family reunification policies that often negate the benefits of admitting young or working-age newcomers by also admitting aging or elderly relatives. In an ideal world, we could do both, but the current reality is anything but ideal.”
It may be time? More like it’s long past time to do so. Just prior to the pandemic, I sat in a specialist’s waiting room for over three hours before getting my turn to see the doc. I got to the office shortly after it opened and there was already a lineup. Soon after, the waiting room filled and the hallway outside the office was lined with other patients waiting to see the same doc. As it turned out, most of the patients, who were mainly seniors, were there with translators, which invariably were younger (middle aged) family members presumably accompanying their sponsored parents and/or grandparents. At one point, a disgruntled Canadian patient (based on her accent) approached the reception desk and asked why the wait was so long and was told that appointments for those who need translators or interpreters take much longer therefore other patients just have to endure longer waits. Why, though? We paid taxes for decades in the expectation that when we got old we’d have access to good health care. That’s gone up in smoke.
You paid for years in good faith. True! Will those who took us on the wrong course now come forward? Wil they admit their error and vow to stay out of any discussion of a solution to this mess? Necessary but not likely.
cgh is correct.
The Canadian Healthcare System is working exactly as designed.
These failures to provide medical services are to be expected.
As long as the bureaucracy is served.
Did anyone really imagine a State Bureaucracy could deliver medical services?
Or even treat sick and dying people with compassion?
I mean..really,this is a bureaucracy and obeys the iron rule to the end.
And thanks to the destruction of private medicine by the State Nobblers,we cannot even seek out a true doctor of our own choice..Well not in Can Ahh Duh…
As for BC,and their “shortage of healthcare workers”..right.
Have they apologized and hired back all the healthcare workers who were smart enough to refuse the Government Goo?
Have they recognized these peoples ability to make intelligent healthcare choices?
In a crisis even.
Back Paid them?
And promoted them over the fools who blindly obeyed?
Over those who injured their patients?
Of course not.
Maybe we must reward all who held the reigns of power and obeyed,for they have turned out to be easily panicked fools,who created the current chaos in healthcare..
Reward them with dismissal and financial ruin,that is.
But this is “Way too radical”..
Is it only in Can Ahh Duh,where “Government Expert” means “fool who destroys all”?
I notice,no one in our media mentions the Home Care massacres any more,or at all.
An interesting footnote of Dread Covid Theatre,deaths of elederly people in government care exceeded deaths in that same age group ,living free, by the thousands.
Almost as if…
We may disagree on a few things, but not on this. Canadians wanted a universal health care system.
They got it.
Canadians wanted it as cheaply as possible.
They got it.
Thanks to the communists taking control of key Canadian health sectors, they instilled an irrational hatred of “profit” and “private sector” being associated with health care and permanently tainted the discussion of any alternatives to what we have now. Until CBC, CTV and Global are dismantled, there will never be an honest public discussion or debate about healthcare anywhere in Canada.
And if you want someone to blame for this, we can start with the loathsome toad Bob Rae, who created the permanent shortage of doctors in Ontario, and to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons who have made it virtually impossible for any outsider to get a licence to practise. They are no better than the medieval guilds of six centuries ago.
Unfortunately most Canadians would rather court national bankruptcy than challenge even the most ludicrous bits of the legislation surrounding socialized medicine. Most are happy to be unaware that Canada is the only industrialized nation in the world that has single payer health care.
That’s ok Dennis, they’re working hard to de-industrialize us too. Put us on the same footing as Cuba, or maybe Jamaica. Won’t be long now, I’d guess.
We have the same problems in Australia.
It seems like these state funded systems are often great when they are set up, but immediately start growing barnacles and have no way of sloughing off dead weight. They just accumulate hangers on and bureaucracy until they hardly even perform the task they were set up for.
The present day system in Australia seems like it is mostly a supply of government money for the people who jump through enough of the right hoops to get themselves a place at the feeding trough.
I seem to remember that Tommy Douglas himself went to the Mayo Clinic in the YS for cancer treatment. I’ll see if I can find that.