US is emergency room for Canada's rationed health care system
Rationed health care is bumping up against medical situations that can't wait in line. If the US adopted the Canadian single payer system not only would more Canadians die, but Americans would too. While there are complaints about the cost of the US health care system, those costs do at least buy health care that is available when needed. Hat tip American Thinker.More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here.
Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care.
The waits, in some instances, have had devastating consequences.
“There have been very serious health-care problems that have arisen in neurosurgical patients because of the lack of ability to attain timely transport to expert neurosurgical centres in Ontario,” said R. Loch Macdonald, chief of the division of neurosurgery at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Those problems, he said, include “brain injury or brain damage that could have been prevented by earlier treatment.”
Ontario has the worst problem, though it is not alone.
British Columbia has sent four patients with spine injuries to Washington State hospitals for care from May to September, 2007, though the recruitment of more staff and opening of new beds have helped alleviate the problem. Saskatchewan has sent patients to neighbouring provinces – such as Alberta, which is working at maximum capacity – for specialized neurosurgical services.
But nowhere is the problem of accessing neurosurgery more severe in this country than in Ontario. Since April of 2006, 157 people have been sent to Michigan and New York State hospitals for care. That includes the 62 patients sent so far in fiscal 2007-2008, according to David Jensen, spokesman for the Ontario Health Ministry.
When asked if any patients transported to the United States had died, Mr. Jensen said the “ministry does not specifically record the outcomes of health services provided out of country.”
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“When someone starts to bleed in their head, you don't have a lot of time. You have to take these patients stat,” said Dr. Rutledge, who was asked to represent the concerns of Ontario emergency-room physicians before a provincial panel studying access to neurosurgical services. Not only is waiting traumatic for patients and families, he said, but “it's immensely stressful for emergency personnel to watch a patient deteriorate before their eyes while they try to access care.” Deterioration, he said, comes in the form of “loss of limb function, seizures and comas.”
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What a load. I'm an American living in Canada .. AND .. work for a US health care company. I know the inner workings of both systems and I can tell you emphatically that US medical care is far inferior to the Canadian health care system. Added to this experience is my wife's recent (1 year ago) diagnosis of serious type of cancer. She has received fabulous care without any treatment hesitations. The medical and insurance lobbyists are working over time to block universal health care in the US, as well as to try and institute private health care in Canada. It's criminal.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Craig
What's criminal is useful idiots such as Craig that use anecdotal evidence to blow away a universal problem. Some of the horror stories that come out of another socialist workers paradise (England) make you shudder over how cold health care workers can be when they are given "guidelines" to hide behind. As someone said, "If you like the US Postal "Service", you'll love government controlled health care".
ReplyDeleteThe US ranks #37 in the world for quality of health care and spends 2.5x more per person than Canada. Private health care systems, of which the US is the last remaining amongst 1st world nations, is inefficient and immoral. The top ranking health care systems in the world are ALL national systems ... not private. The US lags far behind most European countries in health statistics, including life expectancy. Sorry, but the US health care system is expensive and broken. The only people benefiting are physicians, pharmaceutical companies and insurance carriers.
ReplyDeleteCanada's stats would be much owrse if they did not have the US to act as their emergency room. Canada also free rides on US pharmaceuticals where we pay for the R&D and the Canadians get it for the manufacturing cost. There are plenty of horror stories about rationed health care that the socialist wish to avoid. One of them is this story which CPS has yet to refute with one fact.
ReplyDeleteThe US is not Canada's waiting room. Do you know about the thousands of Americans coming to Canada to pay cash for medical services because its cheaper than their deductible and the quality of care is just as high?
ReplyDeleteAlso, Canada and most other universal health care plans are not socialist. It is only the UK who directly employs medical workers. In Canada, for example, medical workers are completely independent of the government and self-employed. You can choose whatever physician, hospital, etc. you like. The difference is that there is only one insurance company in Canada and that is the government. All procedures are billable at pre-determined rates.
Do you also know why medications are so inexpensive in Canada? Advertising medications on television is illegal. 25% of the cost of medications in the US goes toward television advertising.
You need to get a little deeper into the subject.
I have seen no record of Americans going to Canada for emergency services. There are many Canadian premature babies who are sent to the US because Canada does not have the facilities in much the same way they do not have the facilities to treat the emergency cases mentioned in this article. There are other examples of Canadians having to wait months for testing that is available in a matter of days. Whether you call the Canadian system a single payer or whatever, the fact is that they have to ration the health care because of the inadequacies of the system.
ReplyDeleteI've lived in Canada for six years and received everything from CT scans to MRI's in quick time. My wife has cancer and has received immediate world-class treatment. No arguments with insurance companies about "we don't cover that" ... or "not those meds" or ... "you have to meet your $2,000 deductible and then your part is 20%." In Canada there no intervening party between you, the physician and what you need. You get it ... period. In the US, even if you are one of the lucky ones to have private insurance, you spend half your time arguing and petitioning them for payment. The private health care system in the US is one of the single greatest crimes being committed against Americans.
ReplyDelete