Dr. Merrill Matthews, Jr., an Ontario doctor, wrote an article for a Canadian medical publication titled "When Patients Become Victims." 
Dr. Matthews, in a pointed satirical fashion, mocked the Canadian health care system by comparing it derisively to the French version of socialized medicine.
The French proudly call their system, "Medecins sans Frontieres" (Doctors without borders), while Dr. Matthews coined the phrase "Medicine sans Docteurs" in describing the current state of Canadian health care.
Joshua Fleuelling, age 18, of Ontario suffered a severe asthma attack.
He was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital to his home only to be turned away because the hospital was on "critical care by-pass," meaning that the emergency room was full. 
Joshua was then taken to another hospital (a trip of over 20 minutes). He died on the way.
Canadian hospital officials opined, (unsympathetically) "We have had a sudden outbreak of the flu." 
One naturally asks, why would an ER be full of flu sufferers? Answer: In Canada, an appointment to see a private doctor can take weeks, sometimes months.
Canada has had an economic downturn resulting in a tightening of the belt in the area of health-care. Provinces in Canada received their health care dollars from the government, but due to economic stress, the dollars going to the health-care system has shrunk. 
In Ontario alone, the government has furloughed 3,600 nurses and forced 1,200 doctors to take early retirement.
The New York Times, in a rare moment of rational commentary, reported that 23 of 25 hospitals in Toronto turned away patients because they were not staffed to handle them. Twenty percent of these patients were heart attack victims who needed life-saving treatment within 15 minutes but were put on medical hold for over an hour. 
The wait for non-elective surgery and chemotherapy is months. According to a study by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute's annual survey, 213,000 Canadians are waiting for surgical procedures.
Attempts to curb health-care costs in Canada has become somewhat of a joke (if it weren't so tragic) among Canadians.
The latest cost cutting foray by the Canadian government was a mass mailing (at a cost of $500,000) of an eight page brochure suggesting that patients with common colds or flu, self medicate. 
The government recommended raw mustard for the common cold; or the Greeks’ cure, vinegar and pepper; or maybe in severe cases of the flu, copy the Russians and South Asians and drink ginger-tea with horseradish, washed down by a big swig of coriander tea. Holy home remedies, Batman!
Obama's idea of Socialism is fairness across the board when the reality is that fairness under Socialism means that everyone is equally miserable. 
Here are just a couple of light examples. A man in Merseyside, England had a loose crown. He looked for a health-care dentist, but there were none in his district so he had to go out of his district to find dental care which necessitated miles of red-tape to explain his out-of-district request for care. 
Desperate, he super-glued his crown back in place, but it continued to slip off. Finally he located an industrial strength glue, which held the crown in place for two months. He had to re-glue the crown 18 times during the three years he waited for dental care.  
A government dentist drank six glasses of wine during lunch and attempted to extract a tooth later that afternoon. 
He failed twice in his attempts to inject Novocain (wrong tooth). 
He finally got hold of the tooth with much effort and managed to tug on it. The patient, after the first tug, realized that the drunken dentist had deadened the wrong tooth and began to struggle to unlodge herself from her supine position. 
The dentist continued to tug. Luckily for the patient, the dentist collapsed in a drunken stupor across her lap. The patient ran frantically out of the office with one side of her face numb, albeit the wrong side.  
And to quote Dr. Matthews, "Those of you who favor a switch to government-run health care need to have your head examined, but you will have to wait (in Canada) six months for the appointment."
(Studdard is a Fayette attorney and regular columnist for Fayette County News and Today in Peachtree City. He may be reached at studlaw2000@ yahoo.com)
 
 
 
|
