Sunday, March 20, 2005

Canadian health care in action, er, that is "inaction"

A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."
Oh, sure, they have the cheap drugs, but try waiting three years for surgery on a torn knee ligament. “Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.” (Hat tip: Fark)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh yeah, that's just the tip of the iceberg, waiting over a year for an MIR, several months for an angioplasty when the doctor is telling you could die any day, waiting 3 months for PAP smear results instead of a few weeks thanks to new government regulations at the labs, the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, one of the finest has contingency plans in case they have to send patients to the US due to lack of beds/staff, I'm just glad I live close to Buffalo where I can go to get major tests same day....

And this is after our provincial government imposed a special health care tax AND got billions more from the feds specificially for health care, Where's the Money, Dalton?

Anonymous said...

Prof. Deber is conflating coverage and care in her criticism of the U.S. system. 45 million people without health insurance isn't 45 million people without access to health care.

Now, I'm not happy about 45 million people without health insurance, but the fact remains that charity care, installment agreements, and the like make health care (and perhaps particularly urgent care) available to a large fraction of the small fraction of those 45 million who might need care at any given moment.

As for Canada's cost-effectiveness, I think the costs of lost productivity and diminished enjoyment of life during the long waits for specialty care are not being factored in.

Canada's a great country, but Canadians can be really pigheaded about changing their system -- someone should tell them they can still look down their noses at Americans if they have a Dutch-style or French-style system.

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A firm, supportive bed, not a hard one, can do wonders to ease and even prevent bad backs. Only 22% of sufferers had bought a bed classed as ?orthopaedic?; while 28% describe their bed support as ?medium?. Only 6% of experts would recommend an orthopaedic bed to patients.

Three quarters would be prepared to spend more than ?500 on a new bed: compared with just 36% of the ?normal? population. Nearly one in 10 would pay more than ?2,000 for a new bed to get the comfort and relief they need.
Back pain sufferers are twice as likely as the rest of the population to own a new bed - 50% have beds that are less than five years old compared to the national average of 24%.
88% are satisfied with their choice ? but 16% said they would get a better quality one next time; while 9% would opt for something firmer; 5% said they would choose a softer bed and 4% wanted a bigger one.

Sufferers are three times more likely to replace their beds when they no longer feel comfortable (65% compared with just 20%).
31% own a king size bed compared with 11% generally. Separate mattresses zipped together are also popular with couples whose support needs differ or who are easily disturbed by their partner's movements. top
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