Medical Revolution

(Don’t ever get sick in Canada on a week end or holidays)

 

I guess I will never learn or perhaps I am being used as a Guinee pig to force just another rant from this old fart. No one in Canada will tell you honestly that our medical system is without fault, unless they are the young ones that rarely get sick or need the professional help from the numerous health care workers in this province. When we get older and become more reliant on the system is when we find out just how bad it is. Like it or not, socialism has a great part in ruling our socialized medical plans. Far too many rules and regulations and paper work handcuff the dedicated workers from being humane. Our government has taken the humanity out of healthcare and replaced it with rules and paper work. Just a few of the verbal comments come to mind while getting into this subject. 

1”This is a doctor’s office and not a walk-in clinic”.

My doctor informed me after an incident when I was in desperate need of a pain killing prescription. This was during a Tornado watch, she was in and no one waiting in the office but an appointment had to be made for later in the evening at a walk-in clinic or wait 2 to 3 months to see my physician. 

2 ”Your wife is stable now.”

 a day before July 1st long week-end, they lost her during an angiogram that should have been scheduled at least a month earlier. She now waited for a surgeon with three heart pumps keeping her alive needing a quadruple heart by-pass because the surgeons were all off for the holiday. 

3 “We are not allowed to give you a FOBT testing kit for testing for blood in your stool.” This came from 3 pharmacies, hospital and a medical clinic where I was trying to make the procurment because my doctor and surgeon I was to see were both on holidays. .

 I was trying to be better prepared for my consultation with a surgeon that was made three months earlier for a consultation and a colonoscopy test  is almost a certainty that will have to be done.

 3A “Jumping the line eh”.    That is the mentality of some medical Workers in Canada.

 + Between Christmas and New Years.  All doctors and medical clinics were closed and the hospital emergency was jammed.

4 “You need a prescription from your Dr. we cannot change to a different med without it.”

 A Urinary track infection is nothing to be taken lightly. Joan’s Cardiologist experimented by prescribing a new drug that could cause this infection and it did and almost killed her. Once again her doctor was on vacation. It took four antibiotics before she found the one that worked. Only after two hospital visits at emergency and a visit to a medical clinic, finally she got the proper remedy.

 

5 “Why do you insist on not taking my advice to take a drug for high Cholesterol?”  (Staten drugs)

Staten drugs cause a great deal of pain in our joints along with other side effects and we feel worse after taking them. Many doctors recommend not taking them and some warn against them as being harmful to good health.  Besides our levels are not over the boundaries.

 

I am not sure what it will be like when my generation is gone.  Comparisons can still be pointed out as to what health care should be.  We also spent the winter for many years in the USA and health care there should be a model for Canada. Too many Canadians are duped into believing we have a great system. We don’t!  What good is it to have free health care if it is not available when you need it.

Being ill is bad enough without the stress of fighting the system and waiting weeks and months for life saving treatments. Stats for Canada are abysmal and should be advertised so the public can see just how poorly this government is handling our taxes and our resources. At any given time, we have one million people waiting for operations. The government has set benchmarks for many procedures and is presently trying to achieve 90% of these benchmarks. Their actual achievements as of 2016 are as follows.  

                                                 Canada                      Ontario      benchmark

Hip replacement                        79%                            85%                90%

Knee replacement                     73%                            81%                 “

Hip repair                                   86%                            85%                 “

Cataracts                                   73%                            70%                 “

No benchmark has been set for Heart or Cancer. 

However, the government sets the benchmark and what is it? and based on what?  In the USA, a Cataract procedure in many cases can be done the next day. My niece had to stop working for 6 months and face 0 income waiting for her Cataract procedure.

Holidays are not my favourite time.    

 

Paul D. Scott