Gold Medal Mess
Posted 06:54 PM ET
Health Care: The premier of Newfoundland had heart surgery this month in Florida, bypassing his country's state-run system for American medicine. If Canadian care is so good, shouldn't he have stayed home?
'This is my heart, it's my health, it's my choice," said Danny Williams, who told his province's NTV news that the mitral valve procedure he had at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami "was not offered to me in Canada."
The Toronto Globe & Mail reported Tuesday that Canadian cardiologists have "fervently" countered that such surgery "is available in his home country."
But Williams, who maintains he has "the utmost confidence in our health care system," has said that "I had to leave the province because it was recommended to me by my own doctors that for this particular type of surgery I should leave the province."
It's unlikely we'll know all the factors that led to Williams' decision to be cared for in America. This we do know: Tens of thousands of Canadians buried in their country's sometimes deadly waiting lists seek treatment outside the border each year.
One group of patients that regularly travels to the U.S. for care is expectant mothers. In 2007, at least 40 mothers left British Columbia alone to deliver in America because Canadian hospitals didn't have room. That year, a Calgary woman had her quadruplets in the modest-size city of Great Falls, Mont., due to a shortage of neonatal beds in her hometown of 1 million.
Also in 2007, Belinda Stronach, a Liberal Party member of the Canadian Parliament who happens to be the daughter of Canadian billionaire industrialist Frank Stronach and a friend of the Clintons, had cancer surgery in California. She told the Toronto media that it was the "best place" for her operation.
Seventeen year earlier, Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa was treated for cancer in the U.S.
Two years ago, the same Globe & Mail that defended Canada's system in its story on Williams' heart surgery reported: "More than 150 critically ill Canadians — many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages — have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here."
The rest of the story explained how Canadian patients with urgent conditions "encounter barriers to accessing care at every turn" and often must be treated in America.
This is an ongoing issue for our neighbor and a relevant topic for discussion at Thursday's health care summit. Republicans should bring it up while the cameras are rolling and ask the Democrats why they support a system that will guarantee rationing in the U.S. |
