I was watching a depressing documentary on faith healers in the US last night, and these two adult sisters had taken their mom there to have someone pray over her because they'd run out of money for her chemotherapy. That never happens in Canada. You never even see a bill or have any idea what medical treatments cost here, you just keep going with medical treatments until you bet better or your body stops or you draw the line. I like that. I'm glad money never comes into play with these issues.
I think what it is that Ash missed that I was talking about something totally different than what he's on about: I'm saying that once you are diagnosed with and in treatment for something, there is no point where someone will say "sorry, we are no longer funding the treatment of your illness." That never happens. I know this because I worked in an HIV clinic where people, often very marginalized people who some might say have little value in society, received state of the art, client centred treatment as needed and without hesitation.
What Ash is pointing to is a problem his sister-in-law experienced with triage in Canada. His sister-in-law was told she would need to wait a terribly long time for a test that is awfully scary to wait even a week for, never mind six months for. I never said, nor would I ever say that this doesn't happen. I still say a shitty doctor is likely at the core of this, because you don't simply get put in a cue to wait for a mammogram in Canada. It's not flat out "sorry you will wait six months regardless of your situation." A medical professional looks at your situation and places you at a point in the cue based on the severity and urgency of your case. If a doctor south of the boarder says she needs a follow-up mammogram ASAP, and a doctor on the North side of the boarder says "no," then there is the shitty doctor in play here. If this were a person who only had access to the Canadian medical system, the next step would be to go to another doctor, but since she had access to a doctor who could take care of it down south, that was likely the straightest point between two lines. The CBC tells me that our wait times are longer for somethings, but around the same for others, and it varies province to province too.
The benefit of the US medical system is that you can find someone who will take your money to do whatever test you want done to yourself, regardless of what
they judge the urgency to be, where as here, you can find client centred health care facilities who do work mostly that way, or you can go to mainstream GP's where you need to be more aggressive in your self-advocacy if you want something the medical professional you're working with doesn't think is essential. You've got to insist or even switch doctors. I have a fairly shitty GP, but he is fast and loose then it comes to testing and referrals to specialists. When I had my own cancer scare, it was tests up the wazoo at a rapid pace. Still though, I would much rather be with a client centred clinic and called to switch to the nearest client-centred facility that functions that way. The waiting list was over 400 people long, and they wouldn't even add me since I currently have a doctor. Sadly there is no way I can pay my way in to such a clinic here. There is a new client centred clinic that recently opened up, and I called and they were ready to sign me up for an intake. I said I would call back because my hubby also wanted to switch. I forgot about it for a week and and when I got around to it I learned they are full up and no longer taking new patients until another doctor joins their clinic in the New Year. Needless to say, I will be calling again then.
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Topic: The Laughing Stock of Canada (Read 4464 times)