Mark Steyn: The system infected us

National Post ^ | April 24 2003 | Mark Steyn

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Bookmarked.... And Memorized, if possible.

[aristeides]

Will SARS end socialized medicine in Canada? Will SARS end Communist totalitarianism in China?

[EternalHope]

Quite a good article. It lowers my confidence that Canada can beat this, however. We ARE talking about human beings here.

It also helps explain why we still have SARS in its box in the United States. Still, if it reaches pandemic status in Canada we will not be able to keep it out of the U.S. The same comment applies to Mexico.

[per loin]

In rural China, SARS got its start through the population's close contact with farm animals. In Hong Kong, it was spread by casual contact in the lobby, elevators and other public areas of the Metropole Hotel. Only in Canada does the virus owe its grip on the population to the active co-operation of the medical profession.

Steyn missed the mark with this statement. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam had extensive spread of the disease by the medical profession. In fact, it was a medical doctor who brought the disease out of China to Hong Kong. He passed it to the first Toronto victim.

[Pokey78]

Thanks to you both!

Steyn ping.

[Dog Gone]

Great piece. I'm sending it to my doctor friends and relatives.

[mvpel]

I work with a bunch of Canadians, should be interesting to hear their take on this situation.

[harpseal]

But in most other Western health care systems the things Ontario failed to do would be taken for granted. There might be a lapse at some point in the chain but not a 100% systemic failure all the way down the line.

I am not all that certain that the US health care system would have handled SARS that much better. If it spreads to the USA we shall see.

[TomB]

I am not all that certain that the US health care system would have handled SARS that much better. If it spreads to the USA we shall see.

There ARE cases in the US already, it just hasn't spread becuase of proper precautions. If you read the story, Stein makes it clear that Toronto is the only place where there is a problem outside Asia, despite the fact that Asians from the affected areas travel all over the world.

[Gritty]

A Steyn BUMP!

[Carry_Okie]

Brilliant work by Mr. Steyn, as usual.

Unfortunately, he gives the US too much credit. We are patsies for this disease because of political correctness and the degree to which we have socialized medicine as well.

Open borders will bring in a flood of the infected and they will sit just as dangerously in the hallways of County USC as Chinese victims did in Toronto.

Bureaucracy is rife in American private medical care too. Consider how hard it is to get past a primary care physician to an infectious disease doc. Note too that an HMO doc spends less than ten minutes with a patient.

There is also the general American attitude that freedom without personal responsibility is equivalent to liberty, that freedom constitutes the latitude to do whatever pleases the individual regardless to the risks to society at large. One outcome of that public faith is the worshipping of "victims' rights." How hard will it be to institute quarrantine in this legal atmosphere after the way gay AIDS patients have been allowed to flout public health laws concerning communicable diseases? Remember the way Irwin Memorial Blood Bank was still recruiting donors in the Castro district of San Francisco? Another result of "freedom without accountability disease" (FAD) is the way Americans also suffer from "hero complex," where even doctors and nurses are encouraged to come to work when they are sick in order to appear committed, while bureaucrats get to think they are saving money on temporary help. My wife at Stanford Medical Center was virtually forced to share a desk yesterday with a physician who recently returned from Taiwan, and he's as sick as a dog. So, whom do I call who has the balls and power to isolate him?

No Mr. Steyn, Canada's disease isn't unique, it's merely in an advanced stage. Anybody who laughs at this doesn't know much about the reality of American healthcare and isn't thinking.

[Paul Ross]

Let's leave it there. If this is what the President of Mount Sinai calls an "amazing job," then we might as well head for the hills screaming "We're all gonna die!" Toronto health authorities have done an amazing job that's amazing only in its comprehensive lousiness. At every link in the chain, anything that could go wrong did go wrong.

Steyn belts it out of the park again.

[Carry_Okie]

I wish to add that my wife reports that this same physician is scheduled to work an OB-GYN floor today, a sick doctor handling women delivering babies. This at Stanford.

Yeah, we got it together all righty.

[TomB]

No Mr. Steyn, Canada's disease isn't unique, it's merely in an advanced stage. Anybody who laughs at this doesn't know much about the reality of American healthcare and isn't thinking.

SARS showed up in the US about the same time that it did in Canada.

[kevao]

So this is the kind of health care system Dick Gephardt wants for the U.S.? Doesn't sound so bad.

[Aric2000]

This may sound really Callous, and I'm sorry, but the fact is, if it takes SARS to shut down our borders, then I am all for it.

If it reaches epidemic proportions up north and down south, what choice are we going to have? but to shut down the borders and not let ANYONE cross until this thing burns itself out.

I am afraid though that it is too late, we have a number of cases here in Washington, and I think that it is just gonna get worse. I just hope that our health care system can get a quick handle on it, they seem to be doing well so far, so I will just sit back and cross my fingers.

[Dog Gone]

I can't defend a sick doctor tending to patients, but certainly somebody there has considered whether he might have this illness. Has your wife said anything to anyone?

[Peter Porcupine]

LOL! Like Canada has a military to even patrol its long borders...

That's our job, isn't it? I mean, their long border is with a single neighbor...

[Amelia]

BTTT

[Carry_Okie]

I can't defend a sick doctor tending to patients, but certainly somebody there has considered whether he might have this illness.

I doubt it. I don't think it would happen unless he had himself admitted. People don't challenge routinely doctors on such things. This one has a God complex.

Has your wife said anything to anyone?

She didn't. I did. Guess what? Her nurse manager shows up for work sick too (stomach flu). I left her a message registering my concerns, and indicating that I made a record of conversation. Nobody takes risks like that with my wife and kids without me doing something about it.