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Health Care Betrayal – Where Canada’s Health Care Fails
By Bert Brown
 Health Care
in Canada is in crisis! How many times have you heard that statement? After recent experiences with my own family’s adventure along
the road of accessing health care in Alberta, I can say Canadians have been betrayed and will not realize it, unless one tries to access a specialist,
tests, etc that are not emergencies.
My first experience with Canada’s emergency health care occurred after a fall that sent me to emergency care for stitches and an alert for
extreme headaches or double vision. Four days later, I returned to emergency with double vision. A doctor read a CAT scan of my brain and
told me, “There is nothing up there.” I was amazed by his sense of humor at 2:30 A.M. Alice fractured a shoulder a year ago and went to
emergency by ambulance on an evening when it seemed everyone in the city had fractured something. The ambulance crew and the emergency
personnel were excellent.
A few months ago a close friend suffered a stroke. From the time her husband called 911 to transport and treatment at Foothills Hospital
was 47 minutes. Relating this event to our doctor, he said, “We have the finest Stroke treatment team in Canada at Foothills.” Pausing,
he said, “No. We have the finest in the world.” My friend had 100% recovery within days. Faced with chronic back pain in his own family
and in ours, however, the doctor tells a different story. Frustrated at not being able to get help from specialists in a reasonable time
frame, our doctor can only refer, hope and sympathize. That’s frustrating for a young doctor who volunteers in emergency rooms to keep his
skills sharp.
Very recently during an annual eye exam our ophthalmologist commented that to “attack the Canadian Health care system is political suicide,
but that someone needs to do just that in order to fix it. Those who want to pay for services in private clinics should be allowed. That
would infuse the system with more funds to help more people while providing faster service to everyone.” Brad Wall, leader of the
Saskatchewan Party, said recently an 82 year old woman in Regina has been on a 20 month wait for relief from severe pain.
I hope that everywhere Canadians enjoy the kind of emergency care that I and my family have experienced. At the same time I know those with
non emergent conditions are on long painful waiting lists for health care. Even patients with severe heart disease die on the waiting list
before their final tests or surgery.
In October 2004 our lives changed. Alice began to have back pain with pain and numbness down her left leg. Weeks later, she went to the
family doctor who referred her for therapy and acupuncture for 9 weeks. Nothing worked and the pain increased. A MRI was ordered in April,
but was not scheduled until August 6. Fearing a tumor or permanent damage to the spinal nerves, we bought a $750 MRI in June. Relieved no
tumor existed, Alice has damaged to her lower spine which can be treated. The family doc then referred Alice to the Advanced Spinal Centre
for temporary pain relief with nerve blocks until she could be seen by a neurosurgeon.
When called in May, the Spinal Pain Centre said the appointment wouldn’t be until January. In the meantime the pain persisted and increased
and Alice spent a lot of time in the day lying flat in bed. Pain pills produced only small relief. At that time our daughter and I insisted
Mayo could treat her. They made an appointment for her and in two weeks she went for a nerve block. She walked out of the clinic pain free.
The doctor said she could come back if she needed, but encouraged her to keep her appointments in Calgary. Sadly, the pain has returned,
but she got a call from the National Spinal Institute in Calgary and saw them on November 2. She is to have a more specific nerve block
within 2-3 weeks and then possible surgery. The cost of treatment in Mayo was $3817. Because we have been farmers, we could not access a
health or dental care program other than the Alberta Health Care Insurance. In some provinces, there is insurance available that even covers
the cost of travel while being treated.
The simple fact is that Canadians will not wait for medical help with a family member in pain and fear, denied medical aid for months. Faced
with delays, Canadians search far a field for relief. Those that can afford to are going to foreign countries for quicker medical help.
Why shouldn’t they?
European countries have found a balance between private and public care. Why can’t we? It took just one man from Quebec to ask the question,
“Why can’t I pay for the health care I need when I need it?”
Health care is our most expensive complex challenge in the next 25 years. We can no longer tolerate the lies from politicians who claim to
have fixed health care for a generation; they shortened waiting lists by a single day. Canadians will go to the care they need wherever it
exists and drain billions of dollars from a system unable to respond. The federal government has the permission of all taxpayers to use our
money for health care spending. They need to stop using the media to spray the populace with doses of fear. Spreading fear amongst the
infirmed is shameful, unethical, and politically motivated.
They should issue the funding, get the hell out of the way, and let the provinces use ingenuity and ground zero awareness to develop the
necessary methodology to solve the problem. If governments keep promising everything, while improving nothing, there really will be two
tiered health care in Canada – health care for those who can afford it abroad, and those who have to suffer in line at home.
All the physicians I have met agree that there is a disconnect between the patient and the care giver. That road block is in the bureaucracy.
To the bureaucracy, the patient becomes the problem not the reason health care exists! Patients become numbers, not people, in need of
timely care for acute or chronic conditions. One experience with a clinic like Mayo is enough to prove what efficiency is possible when
patients remain the most important person in the system and are examined or put through MRI’s even before their scheduled appointment time.
That money should go into our own system to buy back the physicians and people we lost, to build the clinics and hospitals the boomers will
need. That economic activity and jobs should not go to other countries.
Like justice, health care delayed is health care denied! Fear mongering of a two tiered system is stopping the necessary changes.
Canada needs more doctors, nurses, and technicians who actually help patients. No longer can we afford to let politicians use health care
as a sacred cow to be worshipped, never critically examined or changed. More money by itself only expands the numbers of those working for
the government and loyal to it, not working for the health of patients.
There is a tumor on the table and it is growing quickly. It is going to push everything else off the table…education, social services,
research, infrastructure, everything. That tumor is the growing needs of health care! We should stop believing the myths our governments
tell us that public health care alone is affordable and accessible by all Canadians. We should share in the costs with health insurance
savings plans, private public facilities and pursue all of the avenues to get the care we need in our own country. We are being betrayed
by many in government and it is time to take them to task.
The boomers are coming: the biggest single group in society is going to need acute and chronic care requiring many more doctors, nurses,
and clinics. We can fix it now or live with the consequences!
Our leaders need to answer the question. “Why can’t I pay for my health care when I need it?” No more empty vows to fix health care for a
generation! Only concrete plans with definite action for more well paid health professionals in efficient clinics and hospitals will do.
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