Re: Tide of critically ill Canadians go south for treatment

On Mar 12, 3:44 pm, Thumper <jaylsm...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:56:02 -0700 (PDT), jane.pla...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
... snipped just because it was getting too long....
Wait times in Canada aren't managed by government officials. They're
managed by medical doctors.

Agreed; HOWEVER medical doctors are forced to manage wait times
because:
"limited access to teleradiology; limited operating-room time; too few
intensive-care beds; a short supply of neurosurgically trained
intensive-care nurses to staff them; and/or too few neurosurgeons"

If you need care in Canada, and it's
important, you get it as quickly or nearly as quickly as one would in
the USA. In fact,Canada's health care system does better in many areas
-- better survival rates for many types of childhood cancer, and kidney
conditions, to name two.

Larry, I never berated the quality of the care; just the quantity of
care.

As I said earlier, the Canadian side of my family is split: The young
and healthy who have not used the health care system love it; those
who have used it hate it.

Read the post just above mine from Lorna of Alberta. Her son has to
"wait" in severe pain for 6 months while he "waits" for surgery.

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Chief
Justice Beverly McLachlin for the 4-3 Court.

Do a google search for: Prime Minister Paul Martin private clinic

Jane

In the US some 18,000 persons die needlessly every year because they
lack health care insurance, of which there are over 40 million such
persons. What is the the wait time for the uninsured in the US?

Susan M., a 54-year-old human resources executive in New York City,
faithfully schedules a mammogram every year, calling each April because
she knows it will take at least six weeks to get an appointment. She
went in for her routine screening at the end of May, and a few days
later learned she would need a second mammogram because the first wasn't
clear enough. First date available: July 3. After complaining to a
supervisor, Susan (who didn't want her last name used) got an
appointment for a week later, and that's when the real waiting started.

A doctor immediately reviewed the second mammogram and told her it
showed an abnormality and that she would need a so-called stereotactic
biopsy, an outpatient procedure in which a needle is inserted into the
breast. But she couldn't get an appointment for the procedure until
mid-August. "I completely freaked out," she says. "I couldn't imagine
spending the summer with this hanging over my head!" After many calls to
five different facilities, Susan found a clinic that would read her
existing mammograms on June 25. They would also schedule a follow-up MRI
and a biopsy, if needed, within 10 days. That's a full month after her
first, suspicious mammogram. "We are constantly told that early
detection of cancer is key," she says. "The system is clearly broken."

One of the most repeated truisms about the U.S. health-care system is
that, for all its other problems, American patients at least don't have
to endure the long waits for medical care that are considered endemic
under single-payer systems such as those in Canada and Britain. But as
several surveys and numerous anecdotes show, waiting times in the U.S.
are often as bad or worse as those in other industrialized
nations--despite the fact that the U.S. spends considerably more per
capita on health care than any other country. In addition, 48 million
people without insurance do not have ready access to the system.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070621_716...

Unless an article comes from a medical journal, I try not to use "news
stories" as a valid reference. I also put no credibility in an
article that references "Sicko".

However, From THAT article: "The Commonwealth survey did find that
patients in the U.S. had shorter wait times than every country except
Germany when it came to getting an appointment with a specialist for
nonemergency elective surgery, such as hip replacements, cataract
surgery, or knee repair."

There is an important issue here: The way that we consider elective
surgery. The definition is, "An elective surgery is a planned, non-
emergency surgical procedure. It may be either medically required
(e.g., cataract surgery), or optional (e.g., breast augmentation or
implant) surgery."

In this country, we do not believe in making someone wait 6 months "in
severe pain" for "medically required" elective surgery.

NOW, Not from some "news story", but from the Canadian Joint
Replacement Registry, April to December 2005 - CIHI
"Median wait time from decision-to-treat to knee replacement surgery -
7 months"

Jane.

How long do you wait in the USA if you have no money and are
uninsured?
Thumper

If you have no money and are uninsured, you are covered under Medicaid
or SCHIP.

I personally have seen Medcaid, government health insurance, and it
is deplorable. It is one of the main reasons why I am against
government health insurance for all.

We do need Medicaid, for those who have no (or little) money and it
needs drastic improvement. If you want to see an example of
government run insurance, go to a Medicaid nursing home. (bring your
barf bag)

Jane.
.