Posted on 03/20/2009 4:04:53 PM PDT by devere
It seems that there was no neurosurgeon at the local hospital, and no medical helicopter in the entire province of Quebec, so once she fell poor Natasha was doomed, even if she had asked for immediate medical assistance. It seems almost unbelievable in the 21st century, but that's what socialized medicine brings you. Death.
It should be noted that the shocking lack of an helicopter medevac system in this case is not a reflection on Canada, as a whole. It specifically reflects on the Province of Quebec.
If Nova Scotia can afford to have an medevac system in place, there is absolutely no excuse for the entire Province of Quebec not to have one.
The trick is to wait until the guy leaves the room, then toss the cat out and stick your head in the machine. Of course you still need to interpret the picture, but I'm sure a big internal bleed will be fairly obvious.
What people often don’t realize is that, especially in a rural area, there are things that cost precious time that aren’t actually transport. Things like giving report to flight team, nursing supervisor at receiving hospital accepting transfer of patient and assigning a bed, exchange of demographic information. In areas that are not accustomed to doing a lot of transports, this stuff doesn’t always happen expeditiously, and it all costs time.
In a temporal artery bleed, time is precious.
Seven hours is too much time.
Mrs. AV
The first call to the ambulance, immediately after the fall, was at 12:43 PM, and it arrived at a few minutes after 1. Richardson refused treatment, signing a release, and the ambulance was turned away. Her instructor walked her back to her hotel room and she began to complain of a headache, but continued to insist she didn't need a doctor. The hotel manager called the ambulance again at 3, and it left with Richardson at 3:47, taking her 25 miles to the nearest local hospital. There they attempted to stablilize her and put her into the ambulance for the 52 mile trip to Montreal, where she arrived at 7.
So. You have skiied in a lot of places and traveled out of the U.S. a lot.
Polybius has been a radiologist for many years, both military and civilian. We don’t know if he has EVER SKIIED AT ALL! And does he even have relatives in Canada!?!
Hmmm - whose expertise would I look to when addressing a question re: mortality related to prolonged transport time in a 45 y.o. female w/ temporal artery bleed??
Puhleeze.
Mrs. AV
Well Quebec is the province were , at one time, you made an appointment to make an appointment. Having said that it is also the province were more than one Dr. has opted out of Quebec healthcare and doctored on their own.
I question this "7 hours " time frame. She had an afternoon skiing lesson and fell. 911 records show there is 2 hours between the first ambulance refusal and a call for the second. We know she was transported from the hospital at Ste-Agathe to Montreal at 5pm . An early afternoon fall , even as early as 1pm , with a 2 hour wait , doesn't make 7 hours to get her to an hospital .
There's far too much ignorance posted here regarding Canadian health care. We bitch about it because we pay for it and we care about it . We've never regarded it as free.
No Cat Scan at the first hospital!!!!
Seems like one on every street corner here in LA. I literally walk across the street from my office to get the last two I had. Medical equipment is too “new fangled” for backwards Canadian medicine.
For goodness sake people, spare us the hysteria. Richardson turned away the medical help that was first offered. She wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Those two decisions that SHE made, were most responsible for her death. Let’s stop blaming others just because it might fit our agenda...
I simply made the observation that the level of care she would receive in the Socialist medical system of Canda compared to the Free Market Capitalist medical sytem in America is different and may have contributed to her death.
Thats all this is fact not argument. If you want social change in medicine in America then don’t do anything to stop Obama and the decline in care in the U.S. will be just as bad as it is in other socialized countries around the world.
Obvisoulsy we all have a choice Dr.
No government funded medivac helicopter is what you mean.
I am sure if anyone, including Natasha thought there was a serious problem, a helicopter could have been hired to take her to Montreal quickly.
First class private (for profit) service, here.
:-)
Good point ... unfortunately many respondents here are totally unaware Montreal, along with other Canadian cities ... like Toronto & Vancouver are world class, often rated as the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. There seems to be this mindset that Canada, to the north, equates somehow with Mexico to the south with many in this forum.
Obviously, in addition to not being well traveled ... well, you get my drift.
Excellent point. Someone else had mentioned private helicopter ambulances on a thread, but I hadn’t followed up.
We have them in Ontario.
I would venture to say that never in their wildest nightmares would it occur to residents of Hollywood California that a cosmopolitan, world-class city like Montreal would have a hospital without air medevac services.
The 100 bed hospital in my town in Maine has a dedicated plane for medevac services. They charge a pretty penny for it too. That’s how they are able to do it. Capitalism at work.
The level 2 trauma center 150 miles away has a couple medevac helos they send for the more emergent cases. They charge a bundle for it too. That’s why they are able to offer such a fine service. It pays.
Well, they have to spend all that money on multilingual signage ...
“I am sure if anyone, including Natasha thought there was a serious problem, a helicopter could have been hired to take her to Montreal quickly.”
Well let’s see, by the time she knew Natasha was unconscious. Her 13 year old son was not properly briefed, her husband was on the movie set and didn’t know what was going on, and the ski resort ( the only conscious adults present ) didn’t do it.
In other words your point is quite pointless. I am straining to remain polite.
I think at this point, having very conspicuously killed a world-class celebrity by their negligence, the province of Quebec will remedy this ridiculous situation, and numerous lives will be saved in the future. Natasha Richardson will not have died in vain.
“if this skiing accident had occurred in Stowe, VT or Lake Placid, NY the results would have been the same.”
Actually the New York State Police have medical evacuation helicopters all over the state. The ones at Saranac Lake are close to Lake Placid. Vermont has no civilian medivac operations, but is served by programs in surrounding states and/or by military flights.
http://home.comcast.net/~benandchrisie/medhelos.htm
Evidently Quebec is a uniquely unfortunate place to have an accident. Je me souviens!
No government funded medivac helicopter is what you mean. I am sure if anyone, including Natasha thought there was a serious problem, a helicopter could have been hired to take her to Montreal quickly.
No helos integrated into the medical system.
As Mrs. AV noted in her post:
" *There is a non-profit, private air ambulance service in Quebec called Air Medic, but it’s supported by paying members. The founder, François Rivard, said the government has never supported the idea of integrating Air Medic’s services into the provincial ambulance system. That means paramedics on the ground can’t call Air Medic even if they feel it’s needed. His service costs about $3,000 per hour.* "
Patients, especially visiting tourists, put their lives in the hands of the local medical care system when they are unexpectedly critically injured.
How would a visitor to Quebec know whether they are getting proper care or whether or not the medical care providers have a gag order imposed on them? How is a visitor to know that the Province of Quebec is " one of the few jurisdictions in North American and Europe that don't have emergency medevac helicopters. ..... even the smaller province of Nova Scotia has this service."
The medevac service we use, Airlift Northwest, is first class, private and for profit. Our hospital is local government funded. The difference is that, here, private and public cooperate for the sake of the patient while, in Quebec, the EMT's have orders to allow a patient to die rather than calling the private "Air Medic".
As I stated in my earlier post your ignorance is astonishing. I actually lived in Canada, in fact one school year in Ste. Agathe des Monts, just 25 miles from Mount Tremblant and the location of the first hospital the patient was taken to ... later Montreal. I skied Mount Tremblant ... I've also skied VT, CO, UT, ID and CA. I now live in Ohio, but I've also lived in CO (8 years), CA, CT & NC. I've also traveled all over the world, which obviously you haven't or you wouldn't be denigrating Canada, particularly Quebec and now British Columbia ... I have family on Vancouver Island.
Nice travelogue and thank you for telling us where your relatives live.
What the heck does what you have said have to do with the fact that " Quebec is one of the few jurisdictions in North American and Europe that don't have emergency medevac helicopters. ..... even the smaller province of Nova Scotia has this service."?
I, too, have traveled the world and my travels have included at least two cities that dump their raw sewage into the ocean ..... Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Victoria, BC, Canada.
That is a fact regardless of whether you claim that Canada, like Mary Poppins, is "practically perfect in every way" or whether your relatives live there. If your relatives live in Victoria, their raw sewage ends up in our waters.
If you have traveled around the world, you know that every country, every province, every state and every city has it's strong points and it's weak points, and that includes the U.S. If you want to see Third World behavior, go to Windsor, Ontario ..... then cross the river.
Since you seem to have a total inability to separate Canada from specific and serious problems that certain cities and provinces in Canada may have, I will just leave you with what the head of the trauma team at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal said about this particular case and the shocking lack of emergency medevac helicopters in the province of Quebec:
Brushing off every mention of the specific and serious problems that a particular city or province may have by indignant proclamations about how "cosmopolitan" and "world class" a city is does not make you "cosmopolitan" or demonstrate that you are "well traveled". It merely makes you naive.
A city or a province can be BOTH "world class" in certain things and an armpit in other things at the same time. If you did your traveling with your eyes open, you would know that.
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