More Universal Health Care Horror Stories
I mean can you imagine this happening in America?One man died as a result of failings in his care and it is likely that a second man's death could have been avoided, the Health Service and Local Government Ombudsmen ruled.
Patients with learning difficulties were treated less favourably than others, resulting in "prolonged suffering and inappropriate care", their report said.
When their relatives complained about the care given to their loved ones, they were left "drained and demoralised and with a feeling of hopelessness".
28 hours and 5 hospitals later.....that's the compassion of "Universal" Health Care for you folks. Get used to it because if the "progressives" in charge of the White House and Congress have their way, this will soon be in YOUR future.When Dany Bureau's stomach started to hurt last week, he figured it was just because of something he ate.
So the 21-year-old Gatineau student went to bed, thinking he'd feel better by the morning. But when he woke up the next day, the pain was still there, and it was getting worse.
He headed to Gatineau Memorial Hospital, thinking that doctors would soon figure out what was ailing him and take care of it.
He never imagined the ordeal that would follow: The young man was turned away from five hospitals, got lost in an ambulance and, 28 hours after he was diagnosed, he had a burst appendix removed -- in Montreal.
Because Wakefield's Gatineau Memorial Hospital does not have surgical capacity, the doctor who diagnosed him with appendicitis last Friday started looking around for one that did. Usually, patients from Wakefield are sent to Hull or Gatineau, but on that night, there were no available beds at either.
Labels: Universal Health Care
posted by The Lady Logician at
9:55 AM
8 Comments:
Sobering.
By
tsh, at 10:42 AM
Good thing Americans who rely on their trusty private for-profit health insurance never have to worry.
By
rmwarnick, at 11:41 AM
While we're on the subject of health care, let's not forget one of the "benefits" of the American dysfunctional non-system is the cost shift from the uninsured.
By
rmwarnick, at 2:08 PM
richard - you say "for profit" as if it is an evil thing for a privately held company to make money.
The thing is, privately held companies are not going to turn people away because they know that eventually it will turn around and bite them. They don't want bad publicity because it will hurt their bottom line. They are not going to make stupid decisions that are going to hurt their chances of making money for their shareholders (which would be YOU if you have a 401k).
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 2:16 PM
LL-
I say "for profit" because that's the reason America has the most inefficient and expensive health care in the world.
We have a crazy patchwork of different insurance plans, all trying to avoid paying so they can turn a profit. That creates a maddening bureaucracy devoted to finding more and more imaginative ways to NOT help people.
Because we have no health care system worthy of the name, if you lose your job you lose your insurance. How many jobs have been lost in the Second Bush Recession?
I am SO not looking at my 401(k) these days. Thanks Wall Street!
By
rmwarnick, at 3:12 PM
You do realize these stories DO happen in America every day, right? I mean maybe not in your beautiful little world (see my comment on your painfully naive and assumptive "Hollywood" post just moments ago), but in the REAl world it happens all the time. I'm a health care worker, honey. Your lack of education on the issue is cause enough for your shutting up until you've read a lot more about it. Misinforming people isn't something you should be proud of.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not sold on universal 100 percent myself, but writing what you've written here shows an insane level of naivety. Perhaps not a topic you know enough about to tackle. (Test of your integrity will be if you admit it, or argue and keep flapping uneducated lips, huh?)
By
Anonymous, at 3:10 AM
Richard,
You hit the nail on the head with your comment about the "crazy patchwork of different insurance plans" but I wonder if you realize why that is. Each state contributes to that "crazy patchwork" with 50 different sets of regulations as to what insurers must cover. Rather than turn over everything to the government, we should get the government OUT so that people can chose a cafeteria plan that works best for them. I am sure that as a male you don't like having to pay for coverage for hysterectomies (for example) and I (as a Hispanic female) don't think that paying for sickle cell coverage for me and mine makes a lot of sense. However, given my family history high blood pressure coverage is a necessity! It would make the market more responsive to the insured and not to government regulators as they are now. Wouldn't that be a kick - to have insurance companies accountable to US??????
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:53 AM
Gina - that high horse of yours must be very comfortable since you seem to be quite at ease up there.
OF COURSE I realize that things like that happen here but they are NOT THE DAILY OCCURRENCE that they are in countries with Universal care. Try reading what is written before you condemn someone. Because I did make that statement in my post.
LL
By
The Lady Logician, at 10:55 AM
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