Patients told to go to U.S.
CAN GET MEDICAL TESTS QUICKER
Back to the Healthcare In Crisis Page
Thu, November 25, 2004By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
WINDSOR DOCTOR Albert Schumacher believes it's his ethical and moral responsibility to tell patients they can cross the border for faster tests. The president of the Canadian Medical Association said the country's doctors have no choice when waiting times get unhealthy for their patients.
"Right now physicians scramble to get their patients the treatment they need," Schumacher said.
"Getting it in a timely way is virtually impossible."
In a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade yesterday, Schumacher said the shortage of health professionals and the inability to access timely care for patients is undermining confidence in the system.
"There is a perfect storm brewing in terms of health human resources and it threatens to wipe out any and all efforts to make the system work better," he said.
He accused governments of dragging their feet.
Sixty percent of family doctors here have limited or closed their doors to new patients while the U.S. and Britain recruit Canadian physicians.
Provinces such as Alberta and B.C. have become increasingly attractive to Ontario doctors seeking better compensation and working conditions, Schumacher said.
© 2004, CANOE, a division of Netgraphe Inc.All rights reserved.
Comments:
Tell America something it doesn't know. We rejected KerryCare and HillaryCare for a reason. Socialized medicine doesn't work. As this piece points out, Canadians are "dying" to come here for treatment.
Reply 1 - Posted by: distorted, 11/25/2004 9:07:18 AM
To wait in lines - the inevitable end of socialist allocation.
Reply 2 - Posted by: Midwest Mom, 11/25/2004 9:09:25 AM
This is why we always get Canadians coming here to our town for health care and why several Canadian health care professionals move here to practice medicine.
Reply 3 - Posted by: mobyclik, 11/25/2004 9:13:30 AM
Ain't socialism wonderful? Equal misery for all, except for the ''leaders.''
Reply 4 - Posted by: 1greatmom, 11/25/2004 9:28:56 AM
WHAT???? You mean, in this utopian socialist society people are SUFFERING because of government health care? You mean they AREN'T getting the tests, medicine & care they need in a TIMELY MANNER?? You mean the system is NOT WORKING PROPERLY?? You mean it's not such a dream come true after all??? Well, I for one am SHOCKED by this? I just can't believe that giving the government complete control over a program could EVER be a problem?? Wow, what next.../s off
Reply 5 - Posted by: shimmer128, 11/25/2004 9:36:29 AM
I've got a friend that married a Canadian but lives here and she swers it's better up there, that the news is wrong.
She also says their research is more advanced than America's.
Reply 6 - Posted by: remington, 11/25/2004 9:38:27 AM
"Equality" in health care omits "Quality" in its part. Rationing assures all recipients get equal care.
But there are sometimes highly unequal demands for specialized attention.
Reply 7 - Posted by: wes mouch, 11/25/2004 9:38:57 AM
How nonpaying customers have always been treated: No incentive, no service. Socialists are in denial about this truism.
Reply 8 - Posted by: Armed and Courteous, 11/25/2004 9:41:18 AM
DIE CANADA, DIE. oh sorry that was cold. die canada die.
Reply 9 - Posted by: trajan999, 11/25/2004 9:42:15 AM
"Married a Canadian, but lives here"
Say no more.
Reply 10 - Posted by: M2, 11/25/2004 9:48:35 AM
Hillary-care in action.
Reply 11 - Posted by: SheikYerBooty, 11/25/2004 9:57:24 AM
The government in Canaduh is on to something. If you need ''free'' healthcare and die because you're on a waiting list, then you don't need ''free'' healthcare anymore which saves healthcare dollars.
Reply 12 - Posted by: Talk2, 11/25/2004 10:35:17 AM
#5 I have a friend from Canada who left because the health care system is responsible for the death of her sister, caused her niece's husband to wait for two years for surgery to repair a damaged knee, put another sister's in-law with cancer on a waiting list for chemo with an expected begin treatment date six months out, and who lived in a province where more than half the hospitals are understaffed with doctors and nurses and the remainder of the hospitals have been put in mothballs because there wasn't enough money in the national budget to keep them open.
Why am I ROFLMAO at this situation? Because this is what the PIAPS and the rest of the liberal crowd want for the United States. You can go to bed tonight thanking the Red States for keeping a liberal out of the White House and more socialized medicine out of the United States.
Reply 13 - Posted by: Chief, 11/25/2004 10:47:17 AM
#5 everyone has atleast one friend that is one brick shy of a load. XIN LOI
Reply 14 - Posted by: papabear, 11/25/2004 10:56:16 AM
Interesting that the Toronto Sun, a newspaper that Lenin would have admired, writes daily spewings about how bad the United States is, and how anyone who wants to run away from the totalitarian, right-wing, homophobic, racist morons who inhabit the red states would find their utopia in Canada, still urge its readers to present themselves to US doctors if they want care now rather then a couple of years from now.
Could it be that Canada isn't the utopia purported to be?
Naaaa. I must have read the article wrong.
Reply 15 - Posted by: PrairieAnemone, 11/25/2004 11:37:32 AM
Keep in mind the Toronto Sun is in Ontario.
Keep in mind the doctor profiled is also in Ontario.
Ontario and Quebec have the highest population density.
This is no surprise.
Reply 16 - Posted by: veritas, 11/25/2004 11:49:19 AM
Poor patient care in Canada?
Impossible!
These statist health systems are run by professional socialist planners, who have decades of experience in rationing.. oops! Uhh -- in providing the best care most efficiently! Yeah, that's what they do!
Oh, and they also tell grandma she won't get any more dialysis treatments, and Grandpa that he can't have that hip he needs.
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
~~ Thomas Sowell
"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
~~ Thomas Sowell
"[O]nce healthcare and pensions are the province of the government, the basic relationship between the citizen and the state is altered."
~~ Mark Steyn
Reply 17 - Posted by: nanook of the north, 11/25/2004 12:04:33 PM
I've grown to detest all but the western parts of Canada. I'm sick of their hatred towards us. If their health care is a failure, tough!
Reply 18 - Posted by: plaid, 11/25/2004 12:48:32 PM
Where will they go if America gets "Canadian" or "EuroPeon" style "healthcare?" Socialism is for lazy, useless people who want the government to guarantee their survivalibility.
Reply 19 - Posted by: Tiggy76, 11/25/2004 1:34:30 PM
Still more "use us and abuse us."
Reply 20 - Posted by: MamaD, 11/25/2004 1:41:20 PM
Go to this article from the Fraser Institute that lays out the actual waiting time statistics, etc.
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/chapterfiles/Selected%20Graphs-wytpart2.pdf#
I worked as an RN for many years in Detroit. I can't tell you how many hundreds of Canadian patients we saw in our cancer clinic during that time. Of course, these were the ones who actually had enough money left over after "giving" the government their hard-earned dollars for "free" healthcare.
Many of these folks said that primary care for things like colds, broken bones, etc. was pretty good. However, if you needed specialized care, you often had to face long waits.
Reply 21 - Posted by: grey gent, 11/25/2004 2:14:36 PM
Hey, someplace I read that there are more MRI machines in NY City than in all of Canada.
Reply 22 - Posted by: Blackeagle, 11/25/2004 2:17:28 PM
Come on down! If you're an alien we don't even charge.
Reply 23 - Posted by: SnowQueen, 11/25/2004 2:21:32 PM
A few weeks ago, my husband had chest pains on a Wednesday, a stress test on Thursday, an angiogram on Friday, and a bypass on Monday.
A friend of our family is a Canadian. Three weeks ago, he had chest pains. He did get a stress test right away, but he's still waiting for the angiogram my husband got within hours here in the U.S. At last report, his appointment was still several weeks away.
I think it's pretty clear which system is better.
Reply 24 - Posted by: MsCharlotteVale, 11/25/2004 3:19:43 PM
"Free" anything usually doesn't work out. ("Order now and we'll send you this "free" cooking pamphlet.")
Reply 25 - Posted by: Sojakster, 11/25/2004 3:34:42 PM
I have a old friend, an American, who some years ago and for some bizarre reason opted to retire in Canuckistan. About a year and a half ago his wife passed away from lung cancer, a cancer that had been misdiagnosed by the Canuck quacks as an allergy. My friend now needs prostate surgery and he will have to come back to America to get it as the wait in the Canadian socialist paradise is too long.
