Gone Fishing
I'll be out of the country with no internet access.
My posting will resume here the week of Oct 2.
Posted by Stuart Browning
23 Sep 2006 @ 2:49am
Keeping the MRI Machines Running in Vancouver
 Viewers of our short film Dead Meat may remember Rick Baker, President of Timely Medical Alternatives, a Vancouver-based firm which assists desperate Canadians waiting for health care services to get help either in the U.S. or through the burgeoning private health care sector that is beginning to appear in British Columbia after years of a government heath care monopoly.
Mr. Baker is now in the midst of a swirling controversy over how MRI machines at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital should be used. It turns out that St. Paul's - which gets its funding from the government - has had to shut down its' MRI machines part of the time because there's not enough money in the budget to run them - even while many Canadians languish in long lines to get an MRI scan. Through an arrangement with Mr. Baker's company, St Paul's allowed Timely Medical Alternatives to use the MRIs in the off hours when they would otherwise sit idle. Mr. Baker's paying customers were able to get immediate service while St. Paul's received more revenue. It seems like a win-win situation for everyone, doesn't it? Well, not everyone would agree:
British Columbia's health minister is launching a queue-jumping investigation after patients said they were able to get faster treatment on public equipment at St. Paul's hospital in Vancouver by paying a private clinic.
Allowing private patients to receive faster treatment on public hospital equipment breaches the Canada Health Act and B.C. Health Ministry policy and could result in fines, George Abbott said Tuesday.
St. Paul's isn't the only public hospital in Canada that allows private patients to use equipment at public hospitals, said a spokesman for a Vancouver-based company that prides itself on helping patients find the treatment they need in less than 48 hours.
"We refer our clients to public hospitals in other parts of Canada," said Richard Baker, founder of Timely Medical Alternatives.
"I can't give you details because I don't want them to get in the same mess that St. Paul's has found itself in," he said, but added: "It's routinely done in Canada."
[...]
Baker estimates his referrals of private patients to St. Paul's has created enough revenue for the hospital to hire a full-time MRI technician who is able to provide 40 MRI scans a week and 2,000 a year.
Posted by Stuart Browning
20 Sep 2006 @ 10:34am
6 Day Waits for Emergency Surgery for Fractured Hips in the U.K.
 A prominent feature of government-run health care is the suffering of the most vulnerable members of society: premature infants and the elderly. Socialized medical systems ration care to the most needy patients who require the most health care resources such as old people with fractured hips in the U.K.:
MORE than 200 patients with fractured hips have had operations cancelled at the ERI because theatres were over-run.
The mainly elderly patients were often forced to wait for treatment because surgeons and support staff had reached their legal working hours limit.
Some were forced to wait up to six days for surgery.
I wonder how many Americans would want to have a health care system where the number of surgeons for a given specialty is intentionally kept in short supply by government-appointed health care bureaucrats for the express purpose of limiting the number of surgeries performed. Moreover - when the patient finally receives the operation, it is performed by surgeons and support staff who are overworked and approaching legal working hour limits.
Posted by Stuart Browning
20 Sep 2006 @ 5:40am
Medicine: The American Way
While citizens in Canada, the U.K. and elsewhere wait months and sometimes even years for a government-rationed MRI scan, Americans in Connecticut can buy an MRI scan at the local shopping mall:
Between a pedicure and hitting the sale at Kohl's or catching a movie at the Mansfield Movieplex, you can get that MRI you've been needing at East Brook Mall.
Dr. Hadeer Shaikhly, who recently stepped down as chief of radiology at Windham Hospital, has opened an outpatient center for CT scans and MRIs in East Brook Mall between the Radio Shack and Borders Express. At Windham Radiology, Shaikhly and a partner radiologist offer scanning, night and weekend appointments, no-charge second readings by an outside service, and immediate review of the results with a certified radiologist.
"Pain and disease don't wait, so why would you want to wait?" Shaikhly said about his radiology business.
The center includes comfortable seating, entrances from both the mall and the parking lot, and a plasma TV in the waiting room. While patients or their escorts wait, they can take a pager out into the mall and shop or run errands.
"We give them a little beeper. Just like the restaurants," Shaikhly said.
Posted by Stuart Browning
19 Sep 2006 @ 12:46pm
Great Moments in Socialized Medicine (continued)
Is this what they mean by "two-tier" medicine?
THE chairman of a new Worcestershire NHS trust paid to have a hip replacement operation at a private hospital, it has been revealed.
Dr Bryan Smith, who has not yet begun his job as chairman of the new Worcestershire Primary Care Trust, had his recent surgery at BUPA Southbank in Bath Road, Worcester.
NHS hip replacement patients in Worcestershire normally have to wait nine months for an operation after being referred by their GP.
Posted by Stuart Browning
19 Sep 2006 @ 10:51am
"Universal Health Care" World News Round Up
First, from New Zealand where 800 patients waiting for surgery or outpatient visits have been kicked off the waiting lists and sent back to their GPs so they can start waiting all over again (and notice the explicit reference to a state rationing policy):
Nearly 800 Aucklanders are about to be removed from surgery or hospital outpatient waiting lists in one hit because their health board cannot afford to care for them.
Many are waiting for general surgery or a gynaecology outpatient visit.
Auckland's three boards have regularly removed patients not sick or disabled enough to qualify for treatment under state rationing policy.
But now the Waitemata board is planning to dump, by the end of the month, nearly 800 patients who have waited too long, sending them back to the care of their GPs
... and from the U.K., where Welsh cancer patients are kept waiting:
Following the news that some cancer sufferers are waiting more than two months to begin treatment in Wales, Welsh Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Jenny Randerson slammed government failure to meet the needs of cancer patients.
.. and long waits for x-rays and scans at a U.K. hospital:
Patients at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital face an unacceptable wait for routine x-rays and scans.
[...]
"Some patients are still waiting too long for diagnosis, delaying their treatment, and too many internal examinations fail to achieve a result, slowing down diagnosis and causing distress to patients."
Posted by Stuart Browning
18 Sep 2006 @ 9:05am
A Two Year Wait for Ankle Surgery in the U.K.
 Don Wilkinson
It's hardly surprising that British patients wait years for some types of surgery when their doctors are only permitted one day a month in the operating room:
HE has been waiting since January last year for surgery to his shattered ankle - now pensioner Don Wilkinson has been told the agonising wait may continue until next January.
The 74-year-old retired farmer, of Everingham, near Pocklington, told today how frustrating fresh delays were looming because of new operating restrictions at St James's Hospital in Leeds.
He said staff had told him the surgeon who hopes to repair his ankle could now have only one day a month in the operating theatre for such surgery.
He had been hoping only last month that the op would be carried out by the end of October, but he had been warned it could now be November, December or even January - making it two years since he suffered the injury.
[...]
"It's ridiculous," he said. "I am sick of it. It's just going on and on. I have worked for myself all my life, and paid a lot in taxes and National Insurance, but now I need the treatment, I don't seem to be able to get it."
Posted by Stuart Browning
14 Sep 2006 @ 4:17pm
Canadian Connections
 It helps to have connections to get speedy health care under Canada's government-run system: (From the Aug 23 Winnipeg Sun - article is no longer online)
Leg-injury patients and health-care watchers are complaining that Sam Katz may have flexed his mayoral muscle to skip ahead of others in line for a knee operation.
After the Sun reported Katz underwent surgery at the Pan Am Clinic to repair a torn lateral meniscus -- apparently aggravated by his recent Manitoba Marathon run in June -- the grumbling began.
Brian Strong said he suffered the same kind of painful leg tear last November, but his doctor told him he won't go under the knife until at least early next year.
"Pan Am Clinic tells me the waiting time to get this surgery is over one year," Strong, a 35-year-old in the insurance industry, told the Sun. "However, Mr. Katz, having sustained his injury well after me, has received his surgery and will be jogging again in a few weeks."
Katz didn't say he'll be able to run again soon but did confirm he underwent surgery on his right leg at Pan Am last Thursday morning.
"I've just got to take it easy for, like, the next 48 hours and then I'll be back in action," he told the Sun shortly after. "I'm sure this has something to do with the marathon, yeah. It's just the price you have to pay. But you know what? I have no problem with it."
Michelle Sveinson said she's "thoroughly ticked" at news of the mayor's surgery, barely two months after the marathon.
"It amazes me that so many people are on waiting lists for several months -- and even years -- for various surgeries, and the mayor receives his within two months of his injury," she said. "It usually takes longer than that just to get into seeing a specialist."
DECLINES TO RESPOND
Katz through a spokesman refused to respond.
"The mayor is currently recovering from surgery and will not speak for any health-care providers' decisions or practices," said press secretary Brad Salyn.
Heidi Graham, spokeswoman for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, said a lack of "centralized" wait lists means doctors organize their patient schedules, and "priorize their own patients for diagnostic and surgical procedures based on medical need."
Strong says Katz could calm the anger by providing a good reason for the speed of his surgery. Until he hears a reason, the mayor's operation will "insult" him professionally, he added.
"I'm in health-care insurance, and I view this as an attempt to take advantage of a health-care system that really doesn't need anybody taking advantage of it right now," Strong said. "Especially not someone in power who should set an example to others."
Posted by Stuart Browning
13 Sep 2006 @ 8:27pm
Squeaky Wheels
Just as long-suffering Canadian patients have learned, complaining to the media may cut waits for surgery in Australia:
THE Bracks Government has admitted that people waiting for surgery have a greater chance of jumping the queue if they complain to the media.
As the debate over hospital waiting lists intensifies in the lead-up to November's election, Health Minister Bronwyn Pike yesterday accused Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu of "shamefully" exploiting sick Victorians in order to gain political mileage.
Ms Pike hit out at Mr Baillieu's new "waiting-list hotline", under which people are encouraged to call his office and report how long they have been waiting for surgery.
Ms Pike said Mr Baillieu was giving people false hope because none of the cases had been referred to her department for reassessment.
"We know we have to improve ... but it's not fair to use the individual to drive that improvement," she said.
However, she later conceded that people had a better chance of moving up the list if their concerns were raised in the media.
Let's hope it works for this guy:
A Port Lincoln man says he does not know if he will live long enough to wait for a knee reconstruction and hip replacement.
Brian Hardy says he has to wait up to two years to have the surgery at Whyalla because at the moment they can only operate on one patient a week for joint replacement.
Posted by Stuart Browning
6 Sep 2006 @ 9:22am
More Universal Health Care Misery Down Under
Tens of thousands of Australians are waiting years to see a specialist.
Some sobering numbers from a single Australian hospital:
3700 waiting to see ear, nose and throat specialists
2000 waiting to see an opthalmologist
1400 waiting to see a urologist
And after waiting years to see a specialist ... an even longer line for surgery:
When a patient is finally seen by a public hospital specialist, surgery is recommended in a third of cases, but patients then wait even longer for it to be done.
[...]
More than half those on surgeons' waiting lists are in category two, meaning they should be seen within three months. But Queensland Health sources said these patients often waited two or three years and sometimes four years, or until their condition deteriorated to category one, needing urgent attention.
Posted by Stuart Browning
5 Sep 2006 @ 6:10am
From the Land of Universal Health Insurance
Six Years and Counting On the agony of waiting in vain for surgery in New Zealand:
On Thursday night, turned away after again donning a hospital gown and waiting several hours for surgery, Vi Loughridge wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.
The 74-year-old has crippling arthritis in both knees and, after spending six hours in a pre-op room at Wellington Hospital, she was told she would not have surgery that day, and was sent home. It was the second time in a month.
[...]
Mrs Loughridge has been waiting for a double knee replacement for about six years. She cannot play lawn bowls, sit at her keyboard, vacuum, or move fast enough to pick up the phone two metres away before it cuts out after nine rings. She can stand just long enough to cook simple meals such as an omelet.
Public transport is out, because she falls up the steps. It takes three attempts to get up from her armchair. She often has to wait for the gristle to stop moving in her knees before she can stand up fully.
[...]
"She's got absolutely no quality of life," her daughter said.
In case you couldn't guess: New Zealand spends much less on their nationalized health care system than we do on health care in the U.S.
Posted by Stuart Browning
4 Sep 2006 @ 9:59am
Friend of the Working Class
New York Times class warrior Paul Krugman continually flogs the notion of the U.S. as an unjust plutocracy beholden to the wealthiest 1% of earners while oblivious to the irony that he himself is a member of the income elite. I've got to ask just who does he know in the Bush administration?
This morning, Krugman has more populist advice (registration required) for Democrats on how to help working folk who have seen their disposable income crimped by rising health care costs: have government take over and provide health care to everyone:
Wages may be difficult to raise, but we won't know until we try. And as for declining benefits - well, every other advanced country manages to provide everyone with health insurance, while spending less on health care than we do.
While working Americans may complain about rising gas prices and lagging wage increases, I wonder how they would like the idea of nationalized health care when they are told that patients in the U.K. wait two years for MRI scans:
Some patients have had to wait nearly two years for hospital tests in North Staffordshire, according to a survey.
[...]
Patients who require a routine colonoscopy in Staffordshire - an internal examination of the large intestine - have to wait 665 days.
[...]
... statistics showed that the wait for a routine MRI scan in Birmingham was 338 days and over two years for a routine colonoscopy in Walsall.
Yes, Paul - they do spend less on health care than we do.
Posted by Stuart Browning
1 Sep 2006 @ 11:03am
|
