Single-Payer Hell: Canadian brain cancer patient refused life-saving drugs because he escaped to US for treatment instead of dying
Nationalized healthcare is medieval, not compassionate. It is cruel to the sick. It is, as Canadian's call it, universal lack of healthcare. Despite the white-washing of the entire Canadacare system as some kind of Utopian standard, it is, in fact, quite the opposite. Don't ask Michael Moore though. Ask a Canadian. Not the healthy Canadian, but those that have been sick. It's true that statistically the majority of Canadians are happy with Canadacare, but it is equally true that most Canadians haven't had a medical crisis either. Thus it's understandable that healthy Canadians like the system that they don't depend on. Once they get in a 6-month que to get an MRI on a 'growth' however, that story changes rather quickly, and they become willing to swim across the Detroit river with cash-in-hand to get the care that they really need. Such is the case here. From the Toronto Sun via Carp Diem: Sick man faces bankruptcy — or death
Kent Pankow lives in Edmonton, in a province and a country that is trying to either kill him or bankrupt him.
No sense mincing words.
Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days, his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain, while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not surgery worthy.
Wow. That's totally like the Seinfeld sponge-worthy episode...
...except this is your life and you're not surgery-worthy, eh? Sorry! But the story gets worse - since he escaped the Canadian nationalized system for the life-saving procedure - as opposed to staying in Canada and dying - the government is now refusing to fund the life-saving drugs he needs:
[ That makes sense. He cheated the Canadian system by not dying, the selfish bastard. ]
Now, with the Mayo Clinic having done what the Alberta Cancer Board wouldn’t authorize or even explain, but with the tumour unable to be totally removed, the province will now not fund the expensive drug, Avastin, that the Mayo prescribed to keep him alive and keep the remaining tumour from increasing in size — despite the costs of the drug being totally funded by the province for other forms of cancer.
Kent Pankow, as it turns out, has the right disease but he has it in the wrong place.
Had he lung cancer, breast cancer, or colon cancer, then the cost of the drug — $4,555 per treatment, two times a month — would be totally covered by Alberta’s version of OHIP.
How is that not bureaucratic hell?
Our supposedly universal federal health care system, the pride of most Canadians and the political struggle of America, is only as good as the length of the waiting line and whether you have the right disease at the right time.
After writing more than 150 letters to everyone from the prime minister to virtually all health authorities both federal and provincial, and being ignored in return, Kent Pankow’s wife, Deborah Hurford, decided to finally go public.
CTV Edmonton did a major feature on the family’s plight on the 6 o’clock news and, almost before the program ended, Alberta’s health and wellness minister, Gene Zwozdesky, was on the phone to their home — ensuring himself some positive press in the followup that aired later that night.
Then, when he heard the Pankows had filed a human rights complaint against the province, justifiably citing medicare-based discrimination, Zwozdesky suddenly went mute — stating he could no longer discuss the matter publicly.
Ten years ago, when first diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour (GBM), Kent Pankow was given five years to live.
After beating it down once, however, with his first surgery having been performed in Alberta, he spent nearly seven years in remission until the cancer’s return in 2008.
...When Alberta health minister Gene Zwozdesky called the Pankow home on the night CTV Edmonton aired its story, he purportedly blamed the feds, namely Health Canada, for deciding what drugs are covered, and for what.
Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, however, in a letter to Deborah Hurford, wrote that “while Health Canada is responsible for the market authorization of drug products, the province and territorial governments are responsible for managing the list of drugs for which public reimbursement from government drug plans is available.”
This, too, is passing the buck.
Idiocy like this is the reason that Canada lags the US in cancer survival rates:
Average cancer survival rate in U.S: 68%
Average cancer survival rate in Canada: 55%
Average cancer survival rate in Europe: 45%
So why does Obama want to move us towards a Canadian or European nationalized system???
[Because he's an idealogue. ]
Previously on Canada's (lack of) healthcare:
Single-Payer Hell: Canadian Premier That Came To US For Heart Surgery Says “It’s my health, it’s my choice”
Single-Payer Hell: disabled Canadian Lin Gilbert loses 2+ years fighting uncompassionate healthcare bureaucracy
Single-Payer Hell: Cheryl Baxter Escapes Canada To The U.S. For Care After 8 Years Of Pain
Video: Single-Payer Hell: The Cheryl Baxter Story
Videos: What Canadians Want You To Know About Their Healthcare System - Part 2
Videos: What Canadians Want You To Know About Their Healthcare System
Government-Run Healthcare Is A Prescription For Death
Video: Single-Payer Hell: The Lindsay McCreith Story
Single-Payer Hell: In Canada, Citizens Participate In Lottery To Determine Who Sees A Doctor
Detroit MSM starting to notice: Why are Canadians getting health care in Detroit?
Single-payer hell: Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver, leaked paper reveals
Deroy Murdock: Government medicine stumbles in Canada, U.K.
President of the Canadian Medical Association: "health-care system is sick, imploding..."
British National Health Service Sends Patient With Chest Pains Home With Pain Pills, Patient Dies
Paul Krugman Gets An Unexpected Response Regarding Canadian Health Care
WSJ: 'Too Old' for Hip Surgery
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