It's nice Les to finally hear an honest appraisal from a Canadian of the problems Canada is having with very long delays for treatment and extremely high hospital occupancies. It's also nice to hear how America shines in some of these areas. For too long, all we hear in America is how good the national health system is in Canada and elsewhere. While America has it's problems, they're overblown by people who just want America to have socialized medicine and like Obama did, lie through their teeth to get it.
Regarding delays, when I had my triple bypass last year, they wouldn't even let me leave the hospital after my test show problems. In fact they admitted me within one hour and kept me there for 6 days prepping me for the surgery and waiting for the medicine I had been taking to leave my body to avoid problems during surgery. I've never had problem getting MRI's or any other tests. Most were scheduled within days, the next day or even the same day. I hear in Canada, you can wait 6 months for an MRI, the reason many Canadians come across the border to get them in America. Thanks for your honest report.
Alan, the downside of the American system is the cost of the hospital stay and the hospitals look at every visit as a revenue generating opportunity. For example, if your angiogram shows a 70% artery blockage, in Canada they tell you, it's not too critical yet, let's watch it and see. In USA they wheel you right away to the OR and give you a couple of stents or a triple bypass. And then they prescribe you Plavix for the rest of your life. This happens with privately owned medical facilities.
As to the C19 crisis, the infection rate and death counts in USA are almost 2.5 times higher than in Canada. So I wouldn't say that America shines in these areas.
The problem now is that the medical and dental associations went overboard and banned completely visits to the clinics and specialists without realizing all implications.
