Get the picture:
- A Canadian woman waits six years (!!!) for knee replacements.
- The first knee replacement, on her right leg, takes place last October.
- A post-surgery infection sends her from one hospital to another, temporarily, for surgical removal of infected tissue.
- While at the second hospital, her bed at the first hospital is reassigned, so she can't go back there to have the wound closed.
- It takes eight days before she can get back to her primary hospital, by which time her knee has deteriorated so much that she has to settle for amputation of her right leg.
- Now she has to recover from all this before deciding whether to let Canadian health care operate on her left leg.
You can read the full horror story here.
Reading that, I couldn't help thinking what a travesty of justice (not to mention health care) her case has become. None of this was her fault. The delays, the mis-steps, the infections . . . all were the result of the Canadian health care system. I don't see how she can possibly trust them to operate on her other leg, not after this experience! What's the betting they'll offer her euthanasia under their M.A.I.D. program, rather than further surgery?
What would you do if she was one of your loved ones, dear readers? I'm pretty sure your reactions would be similar to mine - and they would not bode well for the health and future prospects of the bureaucrats and medical malpractice maniacs who've put her through all this.
Peter
23 comments:
I live in Ontario, Canada and having repeatedly experienced the mismanaged fustercluck that passes for health care here, I am not surprised by this story.
I too have repeatedly experienced worsening health problems due to multiple months of delays for tests and surgeries and lack of enough doctors and other front line medical providers.
Things continue to worsen here...and I don't have the money/resources/connections to travel out of Canada for first world medical care.
Worth noting is that every health care system has horror stories--juat look at your kidney stone saga, wherein your first surgery was apparently done by an incompetent butcher, for an example.
However, this kind of thing really should put to rest the weird and bizarre notion that the reason why the US system has horror stories at all is because it's for-profit. Rather, it's for-profit nature is why it has the type of horror stories that it does. With single-payer, however, you get horror stories like this.
Pick your poison.
‘Our Enemy, the State’.
All hail Albert Jay Nick.
I live in Manitoba, and while this is unusual, here, it is unfortunate. I to am considering knee replacement here. Still to be decided (by me).
I have zero doubt in my mind that this could happen in the USA as well, but the reasons and accountability (can you spell lawyers), would be vastly different.
My best wishes for bureaucrats and their soulless masters here in the Beautiful land we proudly call Canada, involve hempen rope and crosstrees.
And millions of American's demand Government run healthcare is a Human Right.
We're doomed. Frankly a thinning of the herd seems in order. There's too many stupid people.
The old joke was that Canadians were unarmed Americans with health care. They're still unarmed, but now subject to governmental medical malpractice and who don't stand a chance against "the greater good". Government can be a wise balance when it knows it's place.
The Canadian government has demonstrated it's care and consideration for its subjects during the trucking stand off. Any government that condones and administers euthanasia for said subjects is soulless, immoral and inhumane They can rot. Freeland is gone and petit' pierre is going.
Our government should be afraid of abusing it's citizens. And should be feared by the rest of the world for the same reason.
rick m
Also in the news, Canadian per capita medically assisted suicide rates higher than US per capita firearms deaths.
No one should be surprised that when someone else is responsible for your health care, your health care will be of lower quality.
I believe a lot of Canadians will cross the border to get health care in the USA. How and who pays is not known by me, but let me see if I can get some stats on that. Plus the Canadian dollar is about 70 cents now, so it takes more $$ to get things done here.
Who is the customer? The patient (self pay if possible), the insurance company (does have some accountability), the hospital administrators, the federal bureaucrats? I would argue that a goodly part of the problem lies in the answer to that question. If physicians and hospitals are penalized for "expensive" patient care, well, everyone should know what happens next.
TXRed
@libertyman
A few decades ago, I lived in Spokane, WA for 9 years. At the time, it was a city of 100,000 people, but had 2 major hospitals. It was the largest medical center between Seattle and Minneapolis.
The reason was people from BC who needed timely medical care knew they could come down to the States to get it.
I can't imagine it's gotten better in the 40 years since I left.
I am reminded of Fi from my favorite series Burn Notice, and I quote "can we just shoot them?"
Bill
My own experiences have been subpar in our Alberta system. One time after a medical emergency a hospital transferred me (sedated) to another hospital, but that hospital was full. The 2nd hospital had a bunch of Gurnees in the ambulance bay with people dropped off but awaiting admittance. 1st hospital tells my wife they transfered me, 2nd hospital says i'm not a patient there. For 2 days she was freaking out trying to find out where i was. Finally a 3rd hospital contacts her to say they just recieved me from hospital 2 and are sending me for emergency surgery .
Exile1981
There are reasons why Canadian snowbirds flock to Phoenix during the winter, Hint, there is a Mayo clinic in Scottsdale.
But hey it's free! I'm not sure if there are ambulance chasers in Canada to sue for malpractice on your behalf.
My wife is planning on a knee replacement in 2025. Maybe. But it will be in Methodist Hospital in Sugar Land, TX, a Class A place.
I can't say what I'd do, it would be considered terroristic threats.
The VA has been wonderful for me. I joined it in 2002 (I was 51) because of an uninsured emergency. Repaired 1 knee ( ACL, mimiscus) replaced 2 knees, repaired 2 blown elbows, hernia and more. I've been lucky/blessed, not complaining.
Cheap healthcare isn't worth it if it isn't good or you can't actually get it...
I'd like to see a real comparison of healthcare quality worldwide, not t just cost.
As mentioned above, LOTS of foreigners come to the US for medical care, particularly surgery. There are reasons for that that many countries don't like to admit to.
Jonathan
If there ever was a good excuse for vigilante style justice this would be it....
A very dry book...but accurate.
Socialized medicine - exactly like Obozo-care here - is designed to degrade care, and if possible, kill the patient.
Canadian health care is a raging success story of government living fully up to expectations, every single time.
Vote in socialism, get it good and hard.
QED
My 2 Cents
I have been part of the VA system since 1992.. should have been 1990 but they lost my records for 2 years and said I didn't exist. ..oh well..
I found VA a medical to be quite good through the 90's out of the Charleston VA hospital.. 200 miles away from me so inconvenient but doctors were nice and cared and stuff mostly got done fairly quickly.
under Bush, Obama and Trump stuff changed.. some better some worse. The bureaucracy got worse.. most of the people still were nice and cared but a lot were constrained on how well they could treat whatever your problem was by having to do so within the "rules!" Current example is that joy .. my now local va clinic 40 miles away (Which is better) has a chiropractor on staff (which should be better) his is a very nice gentleman that is only allowed to adjust the specific part of your back that was referred to him by your primary care physician. I have a service connected injury to my lower back. He can adjust that. but isn't allowed to adjust my neck or mid and upper back. if you know chiropractic you know that if one area has issues it causes knock on effects up or down the spine. However he is not allowed do a full adjustment like he was trained to do as a matter of course in medical school.
Over all though, mostly I see people getting treated for their health issues and the VA picking up the full bill other than co pays for medicines that are treating non service connected issues. I pay 9 dollars a month per medicine. Though you have to be careful as they wanted to charge me 9 dollars a month for low dose aspirin.. 108 dollar a year will buy you a decades worth of low dose aspirin at wal mart or sams :)
I just got a stent in Charleston and 3 days later a er visit and admission at a local hospital due to some inflammation in my heart after the procedure. I have a non related immune system inflammatory condition that I believe was responsible for that. Both the VA doctors that did the stent and the local hospital that is ranked in the top 3% of the nation for treating heart conditions and surgeries both said the stent looked good. My cost for both 0$. Stent fixed old chest pains and local hospital put me on anti inflammatory and new chest pains went away. one and half months later and I can tell I am feeling much better than for the last few years.
over all based on mine and stories from others with VA.. bureaucracy is insane.. treatments are better.. and outcomes are generally better. God help you if you fall in a crack of the bureaucracy.
So I'm grateful for what I can get. My dad and his brother both died of heart attacks at my age. I had a 90% blockage in my LAD. I wasn't long for this world if that stent hadn't been put in. I was scared that I wouldn't be there for my 10 and 13 year old children. I have a bit more hope that I will actually see them grow up and me be there for them now.
as always.. my journey isn't yours and my outcomes might be better or worse.. just random luck of the draw maybe.
Malpractice payouts made by the government
I remember a few years ago some Canadian advocating for allowing some privatized health care (Quebec, perhaps? Some provinces forbade anyone going outside the system), and others attacking him for wanting to create a "two-tier health system", one for the haves and another for the have-nots. He retorted that Canada already had a two-tier system: those who had no choice but to use the Canadian system, and for those who could afford it, head south over the border. Some 25 years ago, there were quintuplets born to a couple in Calgary, a metro area with a population well over a million at that time. They had to fly them to Great Falls, Montana, a city with a population of around 55,000. Calgary didn't have the facilities for that many preemies. Great Falls did. That should tell anyone everything they need to know about the Canadian system.
The VA here in the States varies greatly depending on where you are. My father's bladder cancer wasn't diagnosed until quite late after a couple of years of complaints that something wasn't right, then took their sweet-assed time starting chemo against an aggressive form of cancer. They did my father-in-law no favors, either -- a 3-month wait to get an MRI, for example.
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