Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Do you like?

This a very informal and non scientific survey. Do you Canadians like your system of socialized medicine? Yes or no and if you want, a short reason why or why not. My grand son and I have a bet going on the outcome. Thanks

Rolly;
Good afternoon, I hope your day in the beautiful Coeur d'Alene area is going well.

My answer is no, not in its current form.

Having had family and friends in the health care system and also having direct personal experience using it, it only works some of the time and definitely better in some geographic areas than others. It is absolutely not a single tier system either despite what some might want to believe. For instance work related injuries get first priority to MRI or CT scans, then those who pay for quicker access - unions, sports teams, federal and provincial prisoners - and then the rest file in behind that.

In the Okanagan for the most part, we don't have issues recruiting staff, but there are other areas where there are no doctors or certainly not enough.

Emergency treatment is pretty evenly given, as long as you're in an area that has enough medical staff to have an ER.

Cancer treatments might mean you're driving 7 hours one way and staying in hotels during treatment on your own dime.

The system here is very top heavy with management who don't really do anything. So I've been given to understand there are countries like Germany where the people pay about what we do in direct and indirect taxes for their healthcare system and have much, much better care.

Again though, the "Canadian Healthcare System" will be different for each respondent in my view and experience.

Hope that made some sense?

All the best.

Dwayne

Rolly hope you are having a great day. There is good and bad in this system.

Good --- anytime I have needed urgent care I have been treated well. The system is equal in the sense that people on the low end of income are offered the same care as those that could afford private clinics. This does cause an impact on the bad side

Bad -- the system is top heavy with administrative management and government appointed friends taking dollars away from hiring more front line staff. Our cost breakdowns have a signifcant percentage of money on management. I worked directly with health care administrators in a senior role as a representative from a different sector (Post Secondary - University) and had to deal with a radiation tech that was a wife of a cabinet minister who was given a AVP role to manage the facility side of a large Caner Hospital --- clueless is an understaement for her capabilities.

There is abuse --- my stomach hurts line up the hallways in flu season, homeless wanting a warm place get an ambulance call and tie up the ambulance staff plus hospital staff --- I have heard from health care people on seeing the same person 20+ times in a month. There is a shortage on front line staff - particularly in the busy hospitals and rural settings.

I am not sure how people point at our system and say it is all government funded when there are major fundraisings for specific hospitals. I just was at a function for the Stollery - Childrens where I made a donation of after tax dollars --- same as buying private care for someone I do not know.

Triage really helps to reduce the lines in the ER's

Personally I have paid for MRI's and CT's to be able to provide information to my doctor sooner for quicker care. I have also looked at private surgery in the US for a shoulder injury.

So to me a hybrid system with private clinics would be a great option. I mentioned this to a lady when I was in for tests on my left shoulder with a torn tendon.

The discussion went:
Her --- What are you here for?
Me - Torn tendon stops me from lifting my left arm.
Her -- I have a torn rotator cuff
Me - How long to surgery
Her --- 8 to 12 months. What about you?
Me --- I will be going to a private clinic --so about 3 weeks.
Her --- That is not right just because you can afford it does not mean it is right. You should have to suffer as long as I do.

So she represents the part of social medicine that is fighting any type of change for increased effciency.

At one time (prior to the 80's) Alberta's diagnostic clinics were all provincial government unionized - equipment broke down - no budget to replace, no new state of the art equipment so specialized testing was shipped out of province at a cost premium, huge backlog in testing due to staffing issues --- union holidays, sick time, stress time etc. Testing was contracted out and greatly improved --- over time people forget and now the social medicine folks want this to come back into a government work force.

So while our system works and is cheaper to the individual than yours ours has significant warts.

SD24 is currently dealing with a lot of daily pain that is likely severe endometriosis. Problem is, the only way to diagnose it properly is by exploratory surgery.

Her dr wrote her a note that he is 18 months booked for surgery, and the hospital is 2 years booked. So the likelihood is she could not get treatment for more than 3 years.

The note is to permit her to go out of country for treatment, and it will allow her to write off the cost of travel and treatment against her taxes, which will refund about half the cost.

So, no, not working well AFAIC.

AFA MRI’s for more than 20 years the gov’t has limited the budget of hospitals to operate these multi-million $ machines, so they can run them only about 12 hours a day. There is about a 6 month delay in getting an MRI.

For some hospitals, the other 12 hours they will schedule veterinary appointments for MRI’s, which are done for profit. You can get an appt for your dog usually within days, certainly less then 2 weeks.

IOW, it’s illegal to pay to get an MRI for yourself faster, but you can pay to get one for your dog.

No , the system is broken beyond imagination.

Ran by ‘managers’ ‘ directors’ and politicians with no experience in health care .Little to no input on major decisions by health care professionals.

Without experience in the inner workings of the system it is hard to appreciate the inefficient system.

Costly - simple comparison. My wife and I ( retired RN) spent several months out of country the past couple years. If you extrapolate the cost of our health insurance over 12 months it would be barely 1/2 of the portion of our taxes that go directly into the health care budget.


It’s beyond broken

Not as informed as the other respondents, but the Northern Health Unit has saved my life twice, with costs accrued into the six zeroes range, no waits, no hassles, no bills. I can't praise the system enough.

I have had health problems most of my life, I like our healthcare system, but that's me...