Your recent Health Canada experience - A Third Opinion

This comes from  someone whom  another subscriber to
the CENTAPEDE  sent my comment to - my original comment
follows the subscriber's pro US medical system comment.
I have put the contrary opinion in Maroon.
david ingram
===========================
Dear Writer,
I am a Canadian with health benefits. However, if
there was anything worth paying for, it would be for
my health. My dear friend and respected doctor in
Toronto has very strongly advised me that if  I ever
have a serious health issue, that I should head south
where most of the good Canadian doctors have gone. You
sound to me like too many $$ minded people with your
health concerns running well behind your $$ concerns.
I have tales to tell that could change your opinion on
Canada's "Health Care?".
I have been treated multiple times at hospitals
overseas (both Europe and Asia as well as the States),
and i can tell you my first hand experience in
relation to our beloved Canadian "Health Care" System.
Don't even ask me about how they left my Father after
2 days in intensive care in a Montreal hospital (and i
use the term "hospital" lightly) they said that they
couldn't afford to keep him there, even though he was
conscious and aware. He was shuffled off into the
furthest room without any way to communicate, not fed,
and died. Thank you Canada after 45-years of dedicated
service!
Good health,
BXXXXXX
ps stay away from IKEA
=========================================
david ingram replies:
I bought a soup ladle and a package of juggling balls
at IKEA.  Although everything looked sort of neat, I
could not imagine myself living in an IKEA world.
But back to health care.  I recently spent quite some
time with a former hospital administrator of the
largest hospital in six states, one of which was
Pennsylvania.  His doctors were all on strike a year
ago because they could not afford their malpractice
insurance.
He is from Canada and when I described a former
incident where I was delivered to the Hospital in
Osooyos BC in an ambulance with one hand and one foot
hanging by threads after a motorcycle accident, and
again, only my name (where I was unknown), the US
administrator's comment was that I was lucky I had not
been delivered to his hospital.
I did not even see the bill but he told me I would have
been looking at a $45 to $75,000 US bill.  As a matter
of interest, I crashed on the Canadian side of a
mountain trail which was right on the US / Canada
border.
I am not suggesting for a minute that the service in
the US is not good.  However, it is only superior to
those who have "good" medical insurance or enough money
to pay.  The last time I was at a dinner party in
Sointula, Alaska, two of the families at the dinner,
were losing their homes because of medical expenses.
The Tour Bus Driver at Denali National Park told me on
the same trip that his mother and father had returned
to Canada and taken a job in Ottawa at half his
previous pay because his mother had Chrons Disease
digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/crohns/ and
their medical insurance had run out and they could not
get any medical insurance in the US covering a
pre-existing condition.
IN 1950, when I needed an operation (before Medicare)
in Winnipeg, my father sold his 1947 Studebaker to pay
for the operation and it took another year or two
before he bought another car.
TODAY, in 2004, "that" choice is a daily choice for
over 30% of the US population.  Not so in Canada.
Does anyone else want to comment anonymously or by name
on this topic.  It is, after all, important to us all.
There will be another election soon in Canada and our
health system still needs improvements and always will.
If you do write, please tell me if I can use your name?
My original comment follows:
This is personal and readers will have noticed that
there were no Questions and answers over the
weekend.
I started feeling a little pain in my left chest on
Friday afternoon.  The week was full of stress and
I thought i jut had a little angina.  Even went
shopping at IKEA for the second time in my life on
Friday Night.
The pain wasn't bad on Saturday afternoon so , I went
on to vote for Doug Mackay-Dunn and
Joan Gadsby  (who did not win) in the North Van
District election.  Took my 12 year old daughter
with me to see the political process and after voting,
I was in enough pain that  "Jane" is saying
Dad, go to the hospital. I thought of using the cell
to call an ambulance, even though I was just
blocks from the hospital but I was breathing fine and
drove myself of course.
Got to the hospital with no identification, no medical
card, no money (I had just run down to vote
after all).
They took my name, looked me up in the computer and
had me plugged in right away.
7 1/2 hours later, they sent me home after a cat scan,
2 sets of X-Rays blood tests, 2 ECG's, etc.
Previously I had even got to see my heart valves
opening and closing on ultrasound and the blood
rushing through my nice and clean carotid arteries on
Ultrasound.
The Pain was caused by a touch of pleurisy on my lower
left lung.  The prescription, antibiotics
and Ibuprofen as a pain killer.
My thanks to all the emergency room staff at Lion's
Gate Hospital and Dr. Long.
My comment involves our Canadian health System.
The biggest reason I have clients come back from the
United States is that they have run out of
Health Insurance.
Until the US brings in some sort of Universal Health
Care, it will NEVER be as good a country to
live in as Canada.
Thank you Tommy Douglas, the father of Medicare in
Saskatchewan.
david ingram
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