Catastrophe - Dick Morris [50]
Here are some horror stories about Canadian health care:
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SORDID TALES FROM ABOVE THE BORDER
The Failures of the Canadian Health System
Sylvia de Vries, a fifty-one-year-old corporate communications manager from Windsor, Ontario, couldn’t get approval for ovarian cancer surgery from the government bureaucrats. She crossed the border to Pontiac, Michigan, where an American surgeon removed a forty-pound (18-kilogram), foot-long (35-centimeter) tumor from her body. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported that “had she waited two weeks, she would have faced potential multiorgan failure, rendering her unstable for surgery.”173
“Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures, yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor. Ontario’s government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life.”174
“Shona Holmes, of Ontario, began losing her vision and experienced headaches, anxiety attacks, extreme fatigue and weight gain [in 2005]. Despite an MRI scan showing a brain tumor, Ms. Holmes was told she would have to wait months to see a specialist. In June, her vision deteriorating rapidly, Ms. Holmes went to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where she found that immediate surgery was required to prevent permanent vision loss and potentially death. Again, the government system in Ontario required more appointments and more tests along with more wait times. Ms. Holmes returned to the Mayo Clinic and paid for her surgery.”175
“In Alberta, Canada, Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a ‘Birmingham’ hip resurfacing surgery (a state-of-the-art procedure that gives better results than basic hip replacement) as the best medical option. But government bureaucrats determined that Mr. Murray, who was fifty-seven, was ‘too old’ to enjoy the benefits of this procedure and said no. In the end, he was also denied the opportunity to pay for the procedure himself in Alberta.”176
Brian Sinclair, a forty-five-year-old double amputee, died after a thirty-four-hour wait in a Manitoba, Canada, hospital emergency room during which he never saw a doctor or nurse. He was suffering from a bladder infection made worse by a blocked catheter. The medical examiner ruled that the death would have been preventable had he been seen in time. He registered at the triage area and then was forgotten about. He was discovered, dead, in a wheelchair by a security guard thirty-four hours later.177
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To improve services, the Canadian health care system has set certain goals or benchmarks. It is hoping—hoping!—that it can cut the wait for radiation therapy to four to eight weeks.178 If only cancer were understanding enough to wait.
It’s not like that in the United States. To begin with, all elderly and poor people are covered through Medicare and Medicaid. If they don’t get adequate care, it’s not because of money. And anyone who lacks insurance or government coverage can always get treatment in an emergency room if their condition requires it. The reason hospitals are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy is that they have to spend so much money treating people who have no insurance. While some may be denied care here or there, lack of coverage isn’t the massive, systemwide problem it is in Canada.
The net effect is that cancer death rates in Canada