Originally Posted by
GeriDoc
http:///forum/post/3171360
Cranberry's Uncle who survived 10 years with a brain tumor - had to wait to see a neurosurgeon. HE SURVIVED 10 YEARS!!!! so the healthcare system appears to actualy have worked.
Oh, you think? He didn't survive so long because of the healthcare.... He survived so long because it wasn't malignant for the first 7 years. Oh, and did I mention that we did a fund raiser and gathered up $100,000 so we could send him to the US for one of the rounds of radiation/chemo. I would have the MRIs sent to me here in the states to have them read by the Neurosurgeon I worked for. So ya... when ya REALLY need something.... ya gotta have your reports sent to the States to have them read in a timely fashion. When ya REALLY need treatment sometimes your family has to drain all they own so they can send you to the states for treatment.... sounds like a plan that works!!
I'm the one that told my family that my Uncle had run out of options. It should have been his Neurosurgeon, but that appointment was 3 weeks away.
How about my Grandma..... couldn't get in to see the heart specialist right away and she was having some increased symptoms. Had an appointment made for a few weeks away. Finally she had pains that brought her to the ER. She wasn't from the city where we were from, but from one of the outports. She had to wait there 4 days to get a bed in the better hospital where they could do her angiogram. By that time she was very unstable and she died on the table having the diagnostic test done. They even said the delay was probably what resulted in her death on that day. And for some reason, in Canada, that explanation was ok. Do you know the lawsuit that will result in here in the US... the land of the almighty Lawsuit.
Something that I remember in school that made me so sad. It was a neuro floor, lots of strokes and what not. You were always understaffed, not that there aren't nurses to call to come in... there was no money to call them in. We didn't have support staff like nurse aides to help out. So if the nurse got busy with "nurse stuff" things like ADLs got left behind. I remember this stroke victim who didn't have family to come see him. His dinner tray was placed in front of him and 11:30 am..... it sat there until 3pm until I saw it there. No one had a chance to feed him. I asked him why he didn't call. "He said he knew we were busy and that his meal wasn't life or death".
Even being Canadian, I can't tell you the ins and outs of our Health Care System on the political level. I can only talk on the level of being a consumer and a healthcare worker and the limitations I found. So on the consumer level.... what the Canadian people are actually feeling and experiencing.... I am a better source of information than anyone here who hasn't experienced it first hand. They will even say the system does not work well, and they were raised in and and are very forgiving of it. It's like patients appreciate everything you do, no matter how minimal it is.... UP THERE. Do you know how that WON'T fly here in the states where everyone thinks they are owed something? Where they are ready to sue at a drop of a hat and want the best here and now?
Even if the system ran flawlessly up there... doesn't mean it would work for the general mentality of the US citizen.