The problem is that people are coerced all the time into providing for others in this country to the point where it is assumed to be a right. Socialized medicine is just a logical extention of what is pervasive.
Free Market Capitalization should provide business with enough incentive and tax breaks to allow them the means to offer Basic Coverage; getting the government out of this vital area; we all need to see deregulated!
And also the best health care in the world...coincidence???
Just noticed that this article was written by a PolSci major??? At a state University??? Maybe there's hope for this country yet.
I completely agree with you. I have recently observed the Canadian healthcare system up close during my mom’s care. I was so saddened by my mom’s avoidable death that I wrote the below article (among other things) which I emailed to Canadian and US newspaper editors.
Dear Editor,
I am writing you regarding my dear mother and her experience with the Canadian Healthcare System during her illness. I wanted to share my mom’s experience with you in the hopes that you will then share it with the public and increase awareness as to the problems that exist within a socialized medical system and the unnecessary emotional and physical burdens these problems place on patients seeking medical care.
I wish I could say that my dear mom’s medical treatment went smoothly without physical or emotional stress, but I can not. In fact, my mom had a tremendous amount of difficulty getting quality care in a timely manner, which not only contributed to her earlier death, but also caused her an enormous amount of anxiety and grief. I suppose these are the times when our Healthcare System is really tested, when a patient enters the system with a time-sensitive illness, not a patient with a simple winter cold who leaves the doctor’s office happy and able to recover. For my mom, the combination of long wait times, inadequate preventative care, and lack of communication among doctors all played a role in her death.
I should preface this story by saying that, like many Canadians, my mother was very proud of the Canadian Healthcare System. She firmly believed that each and every Canadian should have access to the same high quality healthcare, regardless of financial status or social ranking. Sure, my mother understood that there were deficiencies within the system, but she felt that these deficiencies were small sacrifices to ensuring equal healthcare access for all. Unfortunately, it was this very Healthcare System that let my mom down and most certainly contributed to her heartbreaking early death.
To give you some background on my dear mom, she worked as a Health Care Aid at the Ottawa Carleton Lodge, caring for elderly people for many years. She retired at age 65, happy to spend her retirement years doing the things she enjoyed, such as travel, golf, etc.. Unfortunately, shortly after retirement, my mother developed a pain in her leg so severe that she could not do the things she so enjoyed. My mom responded to the symptoms by making an appointment with her entrusted doctor of nearly 20 years, Dr. Paul Ghattas, located on Baseline Road in Ottawa. After an initial examination, Dr. Ghattas diagnosed my mom with Sciatica, prescribed pain medication, and sent her home. Unfortunately, my mom’s symptoms persisted over the next 1.5 years, sending her back to Dr. Ghattas time and again. Dr. Ghattas was quick to prescribe an alternative medication, but offered no diagnostic testing or specialist consultation to determine the root cause of the pain in her leg. During this time, my mom tried desperately to maintain her active lifestyle while dealing with the excruciating pain in her leg. I could often find her crying in her kitchen over the situation, fearful of the cause of the pain in her leg. The heart-wrenching truth is that further testing would have revealed the presence of early-stage Lymphoma causing spinal cord compression, and such a condition required immediate medical attention to ensure no permanent damage to the spinal cord. Essentially, Dr. Paul Ghattas’ negligent inactivity prevented my mom from getting the necessary medical care needed to treat the Lymphoma and ensure it did not spread to other parts of the body via the Lymphatic System.
Over the next 6 months, my mom experienced many more difficulties while navigating through the Canadian HealthCare System. The wait time for an urgent MRI test was 3.5 months, forcing my mom to travel to a private clinic in Montreal and pay hundreds of dollars for the MRI. A hospital stay for a leg infection and scheduled biopsy resulted in my mom catching C. Difficile. I must admit that I thought my mom was in very capable hands at this point because her Hemotologist at the Ottawa General Hospital, Dr. Allan diagnosed and prescribed medication for the C. Difficile. Then I discovered that Dr. Allan administered chemotherapy 2 weeks later without ensuring the C. Difficile was cured. This rendered my dear mom’s immune system unable to fight the C. Difficile infection and allowed the infection to take grip on my mom’s body. Within 4 days, my mom was admitted to the Ottawa General Hospital ER when the combination of the Lymphoma and C. Difficile caused heart irregularities and shortness of breath. My mom was electro-inverted in ER, but she was not given the necessary anti-coagulant drug to alleviate blood clots. This is particularly unfortunate given that the medical profession knows that cancer patients have a predisposition towards blood clots due to their hyper-coagulant blood and that shortness of breath for greater than 24 hours is a sure recipe for blood clotting. My mom was admitted into ICU within hours as her medical condition deteriorated. And yet she was still not given the anticoagulant drug until a week later, which was too late. A blood clot had already cut off blood flow to her intestines, rendering the intestines dead and preventing my mom from regaining the life she once had. Additional blood clots were also found in her liver, kidneys, and spine, to name a few. My mom spent the next month in ICU at the Ottawa General Hospital struggling for her life, before passing away on September 4, 2007. Then in late-October, I received a call from the Cardiology Dept at the Ottawa General Hospital. My mom has an appointment with the Cardiologist in mid-November. I must say that I appreciate the timely call.
This article may leave you thinking “why not take legal action”. Well, I looked into it and learned from a well-respected Ottawa lawyer and legal professor that medical malpractice lawsuits in Canada are purposely difficult to pursue since the profession goes to great lengths to protect its own from public scrutiny. You see, the Canadian medical profession prides itself on a number of things, but one is not accountability.
In closing, the Canadian Healthcare System is a fine system provided you all you have is a common cold :(?*!