Posted on 07/26/2003 12:08:34 PM PDT by ConservativeStLouisGuy
Health care in Ontario is free, but so is eating lunch from a trashcan. So last week I flew to Baltimore to see an eye specialist. I did this to avoid a two-month wait in Toronto, the indignity of being treated like a head of cattle at Toronto Western, and health-care workers that are Canada's best answer to an authoritarian regime.
My U.S. medical bill was $1,000 U.S., a price I'm happy to pay just to avoid being sworn at by Toronto nurses.
Whether the care I received in the United States was medically better, I cannot judge. But I did buy something you can't buy here: Civility.
In Wednesday's Star, Joe Fiorito recounted his experience renewing his Ontario health card: a senseless bureaucracy making him shuffle about the city; rude bureaucrats; stupid rules.
His story rings uncomfortably true. Health-care workers I've met in Toronto don't care.
Three months ago, while I lay in bed reading Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm, I noticed a blind spot in my left eye, a little down and right from the centre of my vision. The letters on the page weren't there. Just white space.
For most people, this would be concerning; I was terrified. An accident had severely impaired the vision in my other eye when I was 6.
Although my problem wasn't an emergency, I needed to see a retinal specialist.
This is a doctor who specializes in the photo-receptor-packed "screen" at the back of your eye that images are projected onto.
Part of my retina was apparently not working.
The wait in Toronto was two weeks for me — so short because I went to the hospital, bypassed security and begged for an appointment.
On appointment day, I waited two hours in a room crowded with dozens of patients. My stomach churned.
I overheard an agitated nurse trying to convince someone that I shouldn't be seen. She remembered I hadn't gone through proper channels when I made my appointment the week before.
Then they called my name.
I moved to a jam-packed room where I sat shoulder to shoulder with three other patients. The on-deck circle. I started to sweat. Nurses snapped at patients at a reception desk three feet away. A man with a health card was ordered to the other side of the hospital because he didn't also have a "hospital card."
Then, I was in.
"Ignore it," the doctor said. "Easy case." He saw me for five minutes, looked in my eye with a light and couldn't see a problem.
In the weeks after, the blind spot seemed to get worse.
Every doorframe, computer cord, chart, had a blank spot. I couldn't concentrate at work.
"We're going on vacation, you'll have to call back in August," I was told when I tried to get a second opinion. "There's nothing I can do, there's a lot of other people waiting," another receptionist told me.
It takes one day to get an appointment at the best eye hospital in the United States. I went.
My first indication that Johns Hopkins was different came on the phone. Receptionists were friendly, cheerful and helpful. The answering system has an option where you can speak to an ophthalmologist by phone. In Toronto this would be like phoning a major bank and discovering that by pressing 1 you could chat with the bank president about your service charges. I laughed out loud.
When I arrived at the hospital — and, as Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up — they offered me a cup of tea. My "co-ordinator" escorted me through quiet atriums that could pass for a Howard Johnson lobby. People smiled and said "thank you." The waiting room was so empty (five people in a room that could seat 50) I wondered if my plane had crashed and this was health-care heaven. Where were the huddled masses? In the four hours I was there, three doctors saw me for more than an hour-and-a-half, all told.
The specialist thought about my problem, suggested causes and in the end guessed it wasn't serious and that it would heal itself. As to the cause, he could find no answer. But he had thought about it. He had cared.
In Toronto, hospitals don't need us. They're too busy already. Canadian laws make it illegal to buy our way out of an overburdened public system. We can't buy friendly service in Canada.
Our laws will change, someday. For now, the lesson is this: U.S. medical care isn't just for rich people. Who knew you could get such exceptional medical attention for the price of a new suit?
(Jason Brooks is articling at a law firm in Toronto.)
Didn't happen. That story was later exposed as bs
The Lawson Research Center in London has the only MRI that has ever done animals. At $1000 a pop. And that's what they do. Animals. There are several private clinics that do humans. $700 bucks. Guelph Veterinary College is building it's own MRI facility for animals , $70+million worth.
I don't know who Brooks is and don't care. He claims to have endured 2 hours of nurse hell and had his eye problem diagnosed in 5 minutes . Then he spends a minimum of $1000 us plus traveling expenses, spends 4 hours of which 90 minutes is spent checking him out. And gets the same diagnosis . And a cup of tea.
Big deal.
Didn't ignore anything. It's a matter of individual perception and opinion regarding any difference between our societies. This whiner had no regard for other people , he ignored the law , jumped the line , and is put out because he thinks he's treated indifferent and workers don't care. That's his opinion.
Then he blew over $ 1000 for a smile and a cup of tea. And got the same medical diagnosis.
Big deal
That doesn't even deserve an answer.
My response has nothing to do with politics. I've used the system for over 40 years in Ontario and I can bitch about it as much as any other Canadian. Do you want throw BS at it or the truth? I prefer the truth . Compare Canadian life expectancy and birth mortality . If medical care in Canada is so bad why are the answers higher and lower than in the US .
Canada health care deserves criticism. The more the better. But BS gets you no where.
exclusive government monopoly on health care.
Maybe you better come to Ontario. Private labs, private mri/ct clinics , private hospitals. And ambulance rides and drugs aren't free.
This guy isn't satisfied with a 5 minute diagnosis so he spends a grand and more to get a second opinion. Never mind he gets the same diagnosis . He thinks the nurse was rude to him so that justifies his actions . He thinks he bought civility. What he bought was a cup of tea.
I am the radiologist at a Washington State small county hospital. Last Sunday, the E.R. called to ask me to do an examination on a Canadian tourist they had admitted the night before with abdominal pain.
Arriving in my jeans and my scruffy weekend look, the Canadian lady was surprised that a specialist would drive in from home on a Sunday just to see her. We chatted about the long waits in major Canadian cities for CT scans when our smaller hospital does CT scans 24/7 for emergencies and within 24 hours for non-emergencies.
After my exam was completed, my weekend staff was busy with an E.R. patient so I wheelchaired the Canadian back to her hospital room before I went home.
She was quite impressed that, in Canada, you wait weeks for a specialist to see you for 5 minutes but that, in the U.S., a specialist would wheel her back to her bed on a Sunday morning. :-)
Canadian laws make it illegal to buy our way out of an overburdened public system.
You say:
Maybe you better come to Ontario. Private labs, private mri/ct clinics , private hospitals.
My question is, which is it? How can private doctors operate if Canada has made it illegal?
Doctors set up their own practices. They see who they want , when they want . They then bill the province they practice in for payment. In Ontario that's OHIP.
There are privately run clinics. A MRI in Hull ,Que at a private clinic costs you about $700 . There are 7, maybe 8 private MRI clinics , that I know of , spread around Ontario. If I get a PSA test at a private lab , not ordered by my Dr , it'll cost me about $25-$30. If he orders the test , and I have it done at the local hospital , it doesn't cost me anything.
Hospitals are run by administrators, responsible to their local hospital boards. The Federal Liberals pay a piddly 15%-18% , it's suppose to be 50%, of the cost. The individual province the rest . That is all they do. Pay the bills. And that is why the provinces , and the media , constantly criticize the Liberal government for failing to carry their share financially and for continually trying to tell the provinces what to do.
It's also why what each province is different in what it provides.
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