Old-Biscuit wrote:
Question for our Canadian members...........
How do you like YOUR Healthcare System?
Do you get good healthcare...services/timely appointments/good doctors-nurses/hospitals run efficiently etc?
How much does this healthcare cost..taxes/fees?
Do you have co-pays/deductibles?
Ours is obliviously NOT working
You know what Old Biscuit you'll hear a very varying degree of responses depending on the individual to such a question. FWIW, for us we have generally found our health care system to be very good, in the fact that everyone can get taken care of emergency wise at minimum. For sure there are waiting lists and at certain times ER's in big cities can be backed up for several hours but they do deal with folks based on the severity we've found. There are also questions about approved drugs for certain cancer treatments being more expensive than one that would work to prolong a longer life in a kidney patient but wasn't approved so she had to pay privately for it or get a free sample from the drug company. Yes there are some oddities, but isn't that the same with many things in life.
We needed an MRI for hubby's shoulder, were given a 6 month wait, called and were told by those in the know that the squeaky wheel gets the most grease. Called 3 times for a cancellation and he was seen within a week. Ironically his first surgery done at 51 was a success, this shoulder several years later, was told because he is gone 50 they wouldn't do it by the GP. I called his previous surgeon direct and was seen and brought in to be done. Alas he unfortunately left it too late on the second one and there was 3 strings (don't know the correct names other than the rotator cuff) broken totally so surgeon said he couldn't do anything other than exercise to see if the muscles could help compensate further. In our experience if you don't accept no at the first hurdle, believe in what should be done realistically and pursue you can get good service.
Hubby has had physio done in the past under the health system for one operation here around 2004, yet we had other folks writing articles and moaning they had to pay an arm and a leg for physio. Why we experience different I don't know???
Having experienced both the UK and the Canadian system, I have to say, when we emigrated here over two decades ago, we initially wanted the USA, but it was because of the health care set up that was public info available to us with a young family we opted for Canada at the time instead. (Since then our neighbour here an ex American Nurse has told me that there is in fact health care available to everyone in the USA if you know how to go about it!)
Yes you will hear folks talk of waiting on stretchers for hours or more than a day in the UK lined up out the door in ER and so on, but personally both countries we've never had a problem and been overall happy with the system. When we first emigrated to Alberta after initially landing in Ontario, we had to pay $297 per family per quarter which we never had issues with, then several years ago they did away with that charge in line with other free provinces.
Different folks different strokes but for us, I have absolutely nothing derogatory to complain about our health care based on personal experiences. One thing that does bug us is charges for Ambulance though, especially for those on tight budgets with children or spouses that need life and death lifting and end up being threatened for unpaid huge billing. Our Marketplace TV programme, exposed huge issues in this regards with Saskatchewan even billing for moving a dying spouse from one care facility to another and billing plus interest that's crippling a poor grieving widow. Likewise a lady with a child that stops breathing every so often, has finally moved away from her family support network in that province to BC where ambulance charges are substantially less for affordability on her limited income to get her daughter ambulatory services when needed without the added stress.
Nothings perfect anywhere but overall having been exposed our whole lives to unconditional medical care in our home countries at the time, and being refused treatment in the USA because the medical facility didn't accept Richard Bransons Virgin insurance coverage we had paid for before going to the USA back in the late 80's we prefer our systems.
We believe life is precious and everyone no matter their status should have a right to medical assistance when genuinely needed.
