Posted on 07/24/2007 5:40:33 AM PDT by jerod
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
July 24, 2007 at 1:53 AM EDT
Women with high-risk pregnancies in three provinces have been sent at taxpayers' expense to give birth in the United States, where fragile infants spend weeks to months in hospital neonatal intensive-care units.
Expectant mothers from British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have been sent to four U.S. states, a development some attribute to an increase in the number of premature births, a nursing shortage and a stretched health-care system.
This year, 26 mothers from B.C. have been sent to three hospitals in Washington State; nine patients remain there today, according to Sarah Plank, spokeswoman for the B.C. Health Ministry.
In Ontario, 10 women with high-risk pregnancies were transferred to U.S. hospitals from April to the end of June, according to Kris Bailey, executive director of CritiCall, an emergency-referral service for physicians in that province. That is one patient more than the entire number Ontario transferred to the United States in fiscal 2006-07. In Alberta, four pregnant women were transferred to Montana this year.
Mothers sent across the border are typically those who have gone into labour before 32 weeks gestation, at which point the premature babies require the highest level of neonatal intensive care. With no beds available in their home province or nearby, expectant mothers are often sent by air ambulance to hospitals in Washington, Montana, Michigan and New York.
One mother, Michelle James of Port Coquitlam, B.C., had the nightmare experience of going into labour in late April four months early – 24 weeks into her pregnancy. With no neonatal intensive-care unit beds available in B.C. or Seattle, she was sent to Spokane, Wash.
“We couldn't stop my labour, and they needed to send me here because they had no beds available,” Ms. James said in a telephone interview Monday from the Deaconess Medical Center, where her daughter is in the neonatal intensive-care unit.
“We had a lot of [B.C.] doctors telling us that the pregnancy is not viable and we may have to make a decision [on whether] to resuscitate.”
But when Ms. James, a 31-year-old medical office assistant, arrived in Spokane on April 28, doctors managed to stave off her labour for three more weeks. Ms. James gave birth to Kelsey, who was two pounds (less than one kilogram) at the time of her May 17 birth. She now weighs 5 pounds, 2 ounces (2.3 kg).
Although she credits Deaconess medical staff with saving her daughter's life, she noted the emotional and financial cost of the failure of Canada's health-care system to treat her at home.
She and her seven-year-old son Joshua have been living apart from her 19-month-old daughter Emma and husband David, who remained in Port Coquitlam, east of Vancouver.
Ms. James estimates she is thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, having had to pay $800 (U.S.) a month in rent in Spokane for a furnished basement apartment and other living expenses.
“It's been a roller coaster ride,” Ms. James said.
Medical and nursing staff at Deaconess try to make their Canadian patients feel at home, even attaching a miniature Canadian flag to crib cards.
“Every single family has been absolutely delightful,” said Patrice Sweeny, assistant manager of the neonatal intensive care unit at Deaconess. “We sing O Canada for them. I cannot say enough wonderful things about the families.”
In a telephone interview Monday, Guylaine Lefebvre, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, said she is hearing more stories of expectant mothers in high-risk pregnancies being sent to the United States.
“I don't think Canadian women realize that when they're pregnant, they may have to go to the United States to deliver – not because we don't have the expertise, the best knowledge and ability to care, but just because we're full,” she said.
Sending a patient to the United States, Dr. Lefebvre said, has to be “way more expensive” than fixing the health-care system.
From April 1 to June 30, B.C. paid more than $1 million to transfer nine expectant mothers to the United States. That included payment for nine deliveries, plus in-patient care for 10 babies.
The babies stayed in hospital for an average of 22 days, Ms. Plank of the B.C. Health Ministry said.
Once these babies become stable, they are transferred to a B.C. hospital. According to Richard Kurland, an immigration policy expert and lawyer, children born in the United States have a right to U.S. citizenship.
Janet Matte's son will enjoy this extra citizenship perk, not that it was something she was seeking. Ms. Matte was 31 weeks pregnant on May 3 when she went into labour in Kingsville, Ont.
She went to a hospital in nearby Leamington, then to Windsor, before finally being whisked by ambulance across the border to Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.
“The ambulance took me across to Henry Ford hospital, they got me a room, and right there and then, I had my son,” Ms. Matte, 23, said. “It was shocking.”
Now Ms. Matte is awaiting the day her son Leland returns home. “It's been hard and rough on me,” she said in a telephone interview from Kingsville. “I have trouble sleeping because my son is in the States and I'm here.”
I love my country and I've never had any major medical problems, but I do know this... When the rich in Canada need health care, they go to the states.
bump!
... I do know this... When the rich in Canada need health care, they go to the states.
Are you a Canadian citizen?
Having been born in the US, they are citizens whether they want to be or not, and under US Law and treaties in effect with Canada, they will forever have to report and pay US taxes on their income, even if they never set foot in the US again.
If the US fancies itself as being so liberty-oriented, not to mention fair minded, it must give such children the right to “opt out” of this tax slavery.
Yes... I am a proud Canadian and I’ve never had a problem with my health care, but I’ve been told many sad tales from people who have received crappy health care.
And when KC Irving was on his death bed, he was at the Boston General Hospital, not the Saint John Regional Hospital.
Let’s face it, if you’re rich you go south. If you’re not, you just wait around a lot more.
When I was there, the people of Ontario were furious to find out that the pols had completely run their utility into the ground to keep promising cheap hydro. Why? Because they wanted to spend the money on some new, exciting initiative. Now that would not be MRI machines. 80% of those recommended for MRI died before their names came up on the waiting lists. (A capitalist hospital would eagerly get an MRI and brag about it to attract more customers.)
It seemed to me that one of ther top; priorities was chauffer driven limos for ministers. I was only there a month, but looking at their politicians helped me see our own more clearly. Government should stick to regulation and not try to run businesses.
Canada ping
MM is a bald faced liar.
I have never waited less than 3 hours in a hospital here, and that was for a seriously broken wrist. 6-12 hours is more normal,...on a good day.
Thanks for the post.
Exactly...because socialized medicine DOESN’T WORK. 1. You have to wait weeks to months just to see a doctor, 2. You have to go to the doctor the government tells you to go to, 3. The doctors are often less experienced because they aren’t paid as much, and 4. The system isn’t really free because you have to pay $3000 in taxes to keep it running.
Reading articles like this, make me feel better for have to next month, pay $118 a week for an HMO, which I don’t even care for. (none of Mrs. Springman’s doctors take it.)
I've been thinking about your comments and it struck me that of course the US health care system is the best if money is no object. The problem is that for the other 99% of people, coming up with the money to pay for the soaring cost of health care is a very serious concern.
Put down the crack pipe... now back away from your keyboard.
If such a person wants to give up their citizenship, under a law passed a few years ago, they are still required to report and pay taxes on all income for a further 10 years.
If there is anyone with a ‘crack pipe’, it is those in the so-called ‘land of the free’ who think this tyranny is a good idea.
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