Liberals are always talking about great Canada's "universal" health care is.
Meanwhile, in the real world, these news articles shows that it is not as "universal" as liberals claim.
Just because someone has "coverage" does not mean that they actually get treatment.
The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise. Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients...
www.nytimes.com
Canada’s Private Clinics Surge as Public System Falters
The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada’s most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.
Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.
Dr. Day, 59, says. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.”
Canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services.
Canada has a national doctor shortage already, with 1.4 million people in the province of Ontario alone without the services of a family doctor.
The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks… Meanwhile the median wait between an appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks
Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery
People who go under the knife to get their knees replaced in Strathroy have waited an average of 671 days for surgery as delays in Southwestern Ontario…
torontosun.com
Wait times for knee- and hip-replacement surgery at Southwestern Ontario hospitals are among the longest in the province
People who go under the knife to get their knees replaced in Strathroy have waited an average of 671 days for surgery
Stratford is running the second-highest wait in the province for those needing a hip replacement: the average wait there was 364 days.
In London, the region’s largest medical centre, patients waited an average of 307 days to replace a knee and 299 days to replace a hip
Londoner Judy Congdon waited more than a year to have her right knee replaced when her Strathroy surgeon told her he’d have to replace her left hip next. Told last year to expect surgery in September 2017, her date in the operating room was cancelled, and the surgery delayed a second year
web.archive.org
Some Canadian mothers forced to give birth in U.S.
SEATTLE – A problem in Canada’s hospitals is sending scores of pregnant women south of the border to have their babies.
Carri Ash of Chilliwack, B.C. was sent to the U.S. to have her baby after her water broke on Sunday, ten weeks ahead of schedule.
“And they came in and said ‘you’re going to Seattle,'” she said.
Ash’s hospital couldn’t handle the high-risk pregnancy. Doctors searched for another hospital bed, but even hospitals in Vancouver, B.C. didn’t have a neo-natal bed.
“So two provinces didn’t have enough room, so I have to go to another country,” said Ash.
Ash was sent to Swedish Medical Center where, nurses told KOMO 4 News, five Canadian women have come to have their babies in the past six weeks. Some were even airlifted at up to $5,000 per flight.
And a woman from Calgary, one of the wealthiest cities in Canada, had to travel to Montana to give birth to her identical quadruplets.
“We always regret when we have to transfer a baby or mother to another jurisdiction for care,” said Canada’s Health Minister George Abbott.
Aidan Nassey was born premature in Canada and developed breathing problems before his mother could even hold him.
“It was terrifying. And he was taken away and that was it,” said Courtney Nassey, his mother.
There wasn’t a hospital in western Canada that could take in Aidan, and a helicopter had to rush them to Seattle.
Vicki Irvine crossed the border to see her daughter, Carri Ash, give birth.
“You can’t even have a baby near home. It’s horrible,” she said.
Irvine and Ash are questioning Canada’s priorities when it comes to health care spending.
“I think it’s ridiculous that we can have the Olympics but not enough beds so I can have a baby,” said Ash.
The family says there is one benefit to their neo-natal nightmare — the newborn will have dual citizenship and, so far, they like what they see on this side of the border.
More than 150 critically ill Canadians - many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages - have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here.
www.theglobeandmail.com
More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here.
Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care.
For many, price controls may seem like a tempting solution to holding down health care costs. However, past attempts at price controls teach us a very different lesson--this is one government policy guaranteed to do more harm than good. In fact, throughout history, price controls have been a...
www.independent.org
when Robert Bouressa, the Premier of Quebec, had to have his potentially lethal skin cancer treated, he quickly beat a path to the United States and paid for treatment at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report.
www.ctvnews.ca
Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams will be sidelined from three to 12 weeks because of heart surgery he'll undergo at an undisclosed location in the United States, acting premier Kathy Dunderdale says.
From the video below:
19:41 A Toronto man who had a hearth attack waits and waits in an emergency room because there are not enough ICU beds to give him the treatment that he needs.
20:15 A young Canadian girl who has seizures does not have a regular pediatrician, and cannot get a bed at a hospital.
20:23 “More than a million Canadians say they can’t find a regular family doctor. Some towns, like this one, hold a lottery. Once a week, the town clerk gets this box out of the closet. Inside are the names of everyone in town who wants a family doctor. She pulls out one slip, and then calls the lucky winner.”
The narrator then goes on to explain that in order to avoid such long waiting times, some patients have gone to private clinics where they spend their own money on health care, which is illegal in Canada. Even though it’s illegal, it’s actually quite common.
21:36 A businessman makes money by helping Canadians travel to the U.S. to get the health care that they can’t get in Canada. One such example was a woman who had a blocked artery that prevented her from being able to digest her food. She was starving to death. She’d lost 50 pounds. Then she hired the businessman to help her, and she traveled to Washington state and got the health care that she needed. The American doctor said that she would have died within a few weeks if she hadn’t gotten treatment. However, the Canadian government considered her care to be “elective.”
22:11 the narrator shows that at veterinary clinics in Canada, which are privately run and privately funded, animals can get medical treatment immediately, without having to wait. All of the latest high tech equipment is available and ready.
