Apologists for the Canadian "single-payer" health care system consistently point out that people only wait for elective surgery not for emergencies. Of course, "elective" surgery can mean an urgently needed bypass operation like the one that Diane Gorsuch - whose son Sean appears in our movie Dead Meat - waited two years for and died without getting. However, if you want an up-to-date report on the truth of this claim read Christie Blatchford's article in today's Globe and Mail which enumerates some of the victims of socialism in Ontario emergency rooms in the last few months. To summarize:
- An elderly woman triaged as 'Level 3' meaning she should be seen within 30 minutes, waits three hours in the ER, gives up, goes home and dies.
- An otherwise healthy man in his 60's with bleeding in the brain requires a transfer to another hospital, however, that hospital has no available beds, he is sent home to wait for a bed, waits four days, comes back again with emergency bleeding, and dies.
- A 61-year-old woman arrives with abdominal pain, she is deemed too ill to go home, no beds are available however, gives up and goes home, comes back the next day, suffers a heart attack and is now on life support.
- A 50-year-old man arrives with chest pain, symptoms deemed 'life-threatening' meaning that he should be seen in 15 minutes. Waits one hour and 40 minutes before being seen by a doctor who discovers that he had a heart attack and experienced greater heart damage due to waiting.
The average Canadian - not just the rich - pays almost 50% of their income in taxes while the defenders of the collectivist status quo invariably protest that the system has been starved of funding and that an increase in taxes is what is required. One has to wonder what level of taxation they would consider too high.
21 Nov 2005 @ 5:57am