[TheSpottedOwl]

What's worse is when you don't have insurance and your kids gang up on you and make you see a doctor. They assured me that I was eligible for MediCal. Then some clerk said no, and I am now sitting on 3k worth of medical bills. I've been told by the billing dept. to climb the food chain and fix it and get back to the doctor, however it's a vicious circle of other paperwork for my mom's estate, etc.

Paperwork sucks. I don't know how people who don't understand english can deal with this, because I sure can't.

[goodnesswins]

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

[McGavin999]

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

[nutmeg]

Just damn ping!

[LadyDoc]

hmm. Appendicitis doesn't kill in four hours. He must have delayed seeking treatment for a day or two, or maybe he died of something else...

[Cate]

Hmmm... the docs offices that I've worked at here would have fired ME if I'd had turned away someone without their insurance card. The motto usually is, the paperwork can always be done. Yes, it is important for the patient to have the insurance information at the time of check-in, BUT patient care supersedes all paperwork. The only exception I've ever encountered are drug seekers who are running con games. Those are the ones that better have all their info ahead of time as when they were turned down for narcotics, we never saw them again. Again, thank God for the USA... we may not be perfect, but we still are better than any of the rest.

[Travis Lee]

And after all: RULES ARE RULES!

[CyberAnt]

This is why we don't want Hillary Healthcare!!

[schmelvin]

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

Duh. This was an emergency clinic. Why else would the guy be there if it wasn't an emergency?

My stepdad died because a triage nurse blew him off, and my sister nearly died once for the same reason. My family is very stoic; we don't whine and cry like babies, and we seek to hide our weaknesses. In emergency situations, we tend to be calm and unemotional. I wonder if this guy was the same way, and that's why they blew him off.

I'm beginning to think that medical professionals need to take yet another "diversity" class: One that teaches them that there is a such thing as the polar opposite of a hypochondriac. Then maybe the next time someone walks up to a triage nurse and without wincing, calmly explains that they're in extreme pain, they won't be ignored the way my stepdad and my sister were.

[Polybius]

The U.S. Government has a law on the books called the Emergency Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) which is a section of the broader Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) that was enacted by Congress in 1986.

It states that all emergency patients must be treated to the best of the hospital's capabilities regardless of the patient's ability or inability to pay.

In short, if this had happened in the U.S., the Federal Government would have descended upon the Hospital and all individuals involved like Attila the Hun.

[atomicpossum]

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

The unvarying motto of the bureaucrat.

[festus]

Oh I wish we could all have equal access to healthcare like that..............

[goldstategop]

The Quebec health bureaucracy murdered a man and defends their negligence on grounds of he forgot to follow paperwork rules. This is the way bureaucrats everywhere think of the "little people" - we're there to serve them and we better do as we're told or we're good as dead. I've never seen a more compelling illustration of why Canada Health Care would be bad for America.

[BJungNan]

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.

Similar situation happened in China with a worker but in that instance, no one had enough cash. By the time everyone returned with money, the guy had died. That was quite a few years ago and the hospital policy has changed.