I will never, ever forget a story I heard reported on the CBC (of all places!) a few years ago. I guess it was too much even for them to ignore:
It was winter. An elderly couple somewhere in Canada was exiting a local hospital, after having visited a friend who was a patient there. Being a Canadian government operation, the hospital had not bothered to salt the sidewalk outside the door, and it had become icy. The man slipped and fell on the ice, breaking his hip.
Since they had left via the emergency room entrance, his wife ran back inside the door, expecting that she could get a couple of emergency room employees to run right back outside with a stretcher to retreive her husband and take him inside for treatment.
What a silly old woman she was for thinking that! It turns out that according to The Rules, only an ambulance was allowed to bring in patients for emergency room treatment. The doctors and nurses - whether out of sheer lack of concern for human life or out of fear of losing their jobs, I don't know - absolutely refused to step outside the door, not even to offer him a blanket while he waited. The wife literally had to call 911 and wait for an ambulance to show up and take her husband the five feet inside the emrgency room door (and fill out the proper paperwork, of course), before her husband received treatment.
That is socialized medicine in a nutshell.
If you think this kind of stupidity doesn't occur here you're living in a dream world. It occurs everywhere, in all walks of life. It's human nature. Mercifully, it doesn't occur very often.
Not really.
I have an elderly friend who experienced what he thought was a heart attack while driving his car. He drove to the hospital in Brantford Ont. and found he didn't have the strength to get out of the car .He parked and laid on the horn. Within 5 minutes he was being wheeled in to the hospital. By nurses who came out in response to the person who was attracted by the horn .
Over the years I've taken several people to the emergency room . And I ain't no ambulance .
As for the Steyn story. I have another acquaintance who I helped yesterday . He's 82 and on Oct. 29th went to the doctor and was diagnosed with cancer of the bowel . Since then he had the tests , the operation and the recovery. Yesterday he was walking under his own steam , a little lighter than the last time I saw him , but hopefully cancer free.
Maybe Steyn just has trouble speaking French?