Posted on 08/23/2011 5:41:31 PM PDT by Nachum
From the article "The Soul-Destroying Search for a Family Doctor," about a woman's six-year search to find a family doctor in Canada, where the single-payer system is frequently plagued with shortages for primary care physicians. Although once you manage to find one, you are entitled to receive their medical services for "free" (and there might be some long waiting times):
"When the man took my registration papers and said “congratulations, you have a family doctor,” I confess I had to hold back a few tears. I had just spent three hours of my Saturday standing in line (pictured above) with hundreds of other people outside a community center in an Ottawa suburb to enroll with a new family medicine clinic that is opening at the end of August.
The wait was inconsequential compared to my long and frustrating search for someone to provide me with basic primary care.
When I moved to Ottawa in 2005, leaving behind a wonderful doctor in Burlington, Ont., who had looked after my family for more than a decade, I had no idea how difficult it would be to find someone to replace him. I spent months searching the Internet, calling doctors’ offices and imposing upon friends for the names of their physicians – all to no avail. No one was taking patients. My own husband’s doctor refused to take me because his practice was full. So I visited walk-in clinics when I urgently needed medical attention and went without the routine stuff, including annual physicals.
(Excerpt) Read more at mjperry.blogspot.com ...
I can’t wait for this, here!
Thanks Congress!
My wife wants me to get a physical but I don’t have a family doctor...so she’s looking at a website with pictures of the Dr.s available through our insurance. I told her to look for the one with the smallest fingers.
Don’t believe everything you read
I live in a good sized city in Canada. There are lots of GP’s here right now accepting new patients. Ottawa is probably not attracting too many doctors right now because the cost of living is higher there.
I have a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon from Canada, who for starters was excited that he could buy a house in the USA and that he was treated with respect. He told us that it took a year to get an appointment and another year to get the surgery. They were telling everyone they could that we didn’t want Canadian health care here.
Is there something in that article that isn't true? Can you point it out?
He's right, Bunny. It's actually worse than much of what you see in articles like this. I lived in Canada for seven years. Thank God I was young because I would be terrified to have a medical problem there at my age now (48.)
The normal European pattern is to replace all native MDs with 3rd world MDs, who are happy to get a visa to work for $50,000 yr.
Lol!
The normal European pattern is to replace all native MDs with 3rd world MDs, who are happy to get a visa to work for $50,000 yr.
That’s happening right here in the USA. It will escalate under Obamacare. I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and already our main hospital in this area is chock full of 3rd world doctors, many of them from India. It will get worse in the future.
Pathetic.
Yep extreme rationing and lack of available primary care physicians and other specialists is coming our way, compliments of the Democrats. There will not be enough primary care physicians available. You might see a Nurse Pract. or PA. Many specialists such as Oncology, say they are going to retire rather than work under Obamacare. Why? Because unelected, unconfirmed bureaucrats appointed by Obama will be issuing treatment guidelines and telling Physicians how to practice medicine, and if the Docs don’t go along, will punish them. Why would any Doc want to work under those conditions. A shortage of nurses is also coming because there are not enough professors to train them. Better hope you don’t get very sick.
I found a doctor in alberta pretty quick, maybe I got lucky, she’s also hot, but she’s only about 32, so I fear she knows nothing, maybe that’s why I got a doctor lol.
on the other note, as a Canadian, I know our healthcare system sucks big time, and socialism blows and too many Canadians are completely brain dead when it comes to topics such as this.
Good luck with that!
He indicated that if something is free, automatically certain people will simply access it. I know this to be true, having got into "murge" only three times. They ask for simple remedies and often go for small in household products, such as over the counter pills or band-aids.
He plead for a small surcharge of say ten dollars. He said it was tried before the do good community or the government banned this. He said it cleared the waiting rooms of over three quarters of the usual "clients".
A figure has been given about the "poor people" here. It is said that thirty percent of their income goes in "sundries". Seems a bit high. I know that if a questionnaire was given thus:
Do you spend more than ten dollars weekly on:
(1) Lottery Tickets.
(2)Alcohol.
(3)Tobacco.
Either counting one item or the other items?
They would have to lie in their teeth, I think. It might be argued that poverty encourages these kind of outlays. I would argue that health should be worth making some kind of contribution on each persons part. I know a priority system exists in the "murge" and it is still horrendous as I found out. Passing blood after elective surgery, I waited a long time at least four hours. Nothing to worry though, just drank lots of water and it cleared up next day.
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