Quebec Man Dies After He Forgets Health Card and Is Forced to Return Home

Canoe ^ | April 23, 2004 | The Canadian Press

[quidnunc]

Montreal – A 21-year-old man died of appendicitis after he was refused treatment at an emergency clinic because he didn't have his provincial health card with him.

Gerald Augustin complained of stomach pains on Thursday but the receptionist at the St-Andre medical centre told him he had to return home to get his health card. He didn't make it back to the clinic in Montreal's east end.

About four hours later, a friend alerted police and called an ambulance for the man, who had a fatal attack of appendicitis in his apartment. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Rouslene Augustin, administrator at the St-Andre clinic, said the man didn't appear to have any urgent symptoms when he came to the clinic.

"If this guy was an emergency case, we would accept him if he had his card or not," she said.

"I don't see what we did wrong. I'm not defending the clinic, we just followed the rules."

-snip-

[goodnesswins]

Ahem....only the "intelligentsia" get IMMEDIATE service in Canada if they are told NO....ask people in Vancouver, BC...

[DoughtyOne]

Learn Spanish, don your worst looking clothes, leave your I.D. at home, fein illiteracy and you'll get that bill written off faster than you can spit over the Rio Grande.

[GeronL]

no... let me look

[GeronL]

Martin Luther King Jr./Charles R. Drew Medical Center

Here is a link to the article at NRO Life & Death in LA

... In fact, I've instructed coworkers that even if I get shot in the waiting room at King/Drew, they're to call an ambulance and have me taken somewhere else.

I'll close with an anecdote: When police officers respond to shootings in Los Angeles, they must advise their watch commanders of the victim's condition so the appropriate detectives can be notified. I was once on the phone with my watch commander as I watched paramedics load a shooting victim into an ambulance. "How's he look?" asked the lieutenant.

"Not that bad," I said, "but they're taking him to King."

"Okay," he said. "I'll call Homicide."

[Flipyaforreal]

LOL, unbelievable, no kidding, I came here expecting a "Just damn" post too.
Thanks for the ping!

[kanawa]

why do people need to show a card???

Rumor has it that people from other countries come here and actually do get free health care as opposed to citizens that pay taxes for their 'free' health care.

[GeronL]

BUMP

[GeronL]

Nah. People going over the border is supposed to be a good thing, leftists always say so.

[DoughtyOne]

"...I'll call homicide." Ouch!

That's a good one. In it's infancy King was this mable laden edifice to government programs for the poor. Within a couple of years that poor had defaced every ince of that marble. Martin Lutther King hospital, housing projects and give-aways to illegals taught me all I needed to know about the nanny-state mentality. If it makes no sense at all, do it.

[McGavin999]

Free healthcare for everyone........if you can manage to live long enough to get it.

[GeronL]

The article says it was set up as a black community hospital and now the community is hispanic the same black bureaucrats run the place... kind of run it anyway. It could lose federal Medicare dollars thats half its budget.

[clee1]

Ohfercryinoutloud!

More stupidity brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood socialists. This is how we will end up if Hitlery has her way.

Thanks, I think, for the bump.

[GeronL]

And see link in post #44... I think its 44

[nutmeg]

Thanks for the "just damn" reminder. I've got to ping mhking... this is a good one for his "just damn" ping list!

[nutmeg]

Just damn ping!

[clee1]

Just... Damn Alert.

I'm glad I'm relatively healthy.

[kanawa]

"I don't see what we did wrong. I'm not defending the clinic, we just followed the rules."

Man, I hate bureaucrats.

[GeronL]

you just wait. you'll need help sooner or later. and then they'll GET you but good.

[GeronL]

bureacrats get blind

[DoughtyOne]

At one point MLK was used as a place to train military doctors to treat gunshot wounds, since it saw so many.

One of my fears has been the importation of physicians and medical staff from overseas. I'm not sure how widespread it is, but from what I've seen some of these folks would make me want to run for my life.

Your comment that Medicare makes up about half the dollars pouring through MLK is indicative of one thing that has been very destructive to healthcare. What the government couldn't accomplish on it's own, HMOs and private insurers have been happy to help with.

Most hospitals have to deal with these two entities, that tell the hospitals how much they'll pay, damn the costs. Then the government forces these hospitals to serve illegals, which don't pay a dime.

It's amazing to me that we have any healthcare system left in this nation.