What’s the Canadian word for ‘lousy care’?
This story is by a Brit.
Jeremy Clarkson
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While I was away, there was a big debate about how Barack Obama might sort out America’s healthcare system, which, say the critics, is chronically awful and fantastically unfair.
It’s also bonkers. I was once denied treatment at a Detroit hospital because the receptionist’s computer refused to acknowledge that the United Kingdom existed. Even though I had a wad of cash, and a wallet full of credit cards, she was prepared to let me explode all over her desk because her stupid software only recognised addresses in the United States.
Some say America should follow Canada’s lead, where private care is effectively banned. But having experienced their procedures while on holiday in Quebec, I really don’t think that’s a good idea at all.
A friend’s 13-year-old son tripped while climbing off a speedboat and ripped his leg open. Things started well. The ambulance arrived promptly, the wound was bandaged and off he went in a big, exciting van.
Now, we are all used to a bit of a wait at the hospital. God knows, I’ve spent enough time in accident and emergency at Oxford’s John Radcliffe over the years, sitting with my sobbing children in a room full of people with swords in their eyes and their feet on back to front. But nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in Canada before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare.
It didn’t seem desperately busy. One woman had lost her face somehow — probably a bear attack — and one kid appeared to have taken rather too much ecstasy, but there were no more than a dozen people in the waiting room. And no one was gouting arterial blood all over the walls.
After a couple of hours, I asked the receptionist how long it might be before a doctor came. In a Wal-Mart, it’s quite quaint to be served by a fat, gum-chewing teenager who claims not to understand what you’re saying, but in a hospital it’s annoying. Resisting the temptation to explain that the Marquis de Montcalm lost and that it’s time to get over it, I went back to the boy’s cubicle, which he was sharing with a young Muslim couple.
A doctor came in and said to them: “You’ve had a miscarriage,” and then turned to go. Understandably, the poor girl was very upset and asked if the doctor was sure.
“Look, we’ve done a scan and there’s nothing in there,” she said, in perhaps the worst example of a bedside manner I’ve ever seen.
“Is anyone coming to look at my son?” asked my friend politely. “Quoi?” said the haughty doctor, who had suddenly forgotten how to speak English. “Je ne comprends pas.” And with that, she was gone.
At midnight, a young man who had been brought up on a diet of American music, American movies and very obviously American food, arrived to say, in French, that the doctors were changing shift and a new one would be along as soon as possible.
By then, it was one in the morning and my legs were becoming weary. This is because the hospital had no chairs for relatives and friends. It’s not a lack of funds, plainly. Because they had enough money to paint a yellow line on the road nine yards from the front door, beyond which you were able to smoke.
And they also had the cash to employ an army of people to slam the door in your face if you poked your head into the inner sanctum to ask how much longer the wait might be. Sixteen hours is apparently the norm. Unless you want a scan. Then it’s 22 months.
At about 1.30am a doctor arrived. Boy, he was a piece of work. He couldn’t have been more rude if I’d been General Wolfe. He removed the bandages like they were the packaging on a disposable razor, looked at the wound, which was horrific, and said to my friend: “Is it cash or credit card?”
This seemed odd in a country with no private care, but it turns out they charge non-Canadians precisely what they would charge the government if the patient were Céline Dion. The bill was C$300 (about £170).
The doctor vanished, but he hadn’t bothered to reapply the boy’s bandages, which meant the little lad was left with nothing to look at except his own thigh bone. An hour later, the painkillers arrived.
What the doctor was doing in between was going to a desk and sitting down. I watched him do it. He would go into a cubicle, be rude, cause the patient a bit of pain and then sit down again on the hospital’s only chair.
Seven hours after the accident, in a country widely touted to be the safest and best in the world, he applied 16 stitches that couldn’t have been less neat if he’d done them on a battlefield, with twigs. And then the anaesthetist arrived to wake the boy up. In French. This didn’t work, so she went away to sit on the doctor’s chair because he was in another cubicle bring rude and causing pain to someone else.
Now, I appreciate that any doctor who ends up working the night shift at a provincial hospital in Nowheresville is unlikely to be at the top of his game, and you can’t judge a country’s healthcare on his piss-poor performance. And nor should all of Canada be judged on Quebec, which is full of idealistic, language-Nazi lunatics.
But I can say this. If private treatment had been allowed, my friend would have paid for it. He would have received better service and in doing so, allowed Dr Useless to get to the woman with no face or ecstasy boy more quickly. Though I suspect he would have used our absence to spend more time sitting down.
The other thing I can say is that Britain’s National Health Service is a monster that we can barely afford. But in all the times I’ve ever used the big, flawed giant, no one has ever pretended to be French, no one has spent more time swiping my credit card than ordering painkillers and there are many chairs.
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Russ Hoover wrote:
Sorry folks. We already have free health care in the US. Anyone who walks into a hospital will be treated regardless of whether they have funds. A typical ER visit in my locale requires an investment of maybe two hours. We have walk-in clinics to treat minor injuries. A suture job will get you to the head of the line if you are bleeding and you will be out in less than an hour for less than $200.00. The propaganda about our horrific health care system is just that; propaganda. Over 80% of Americans are perfectly content with their present system. Why should we overhaul our entire system and make everyone miserable to satisfy the 20%? Because it is an avenue to power for politicians.
H. Benjamin wrote:
The Ontario system is quite horrid esp. if you don't know the doctor. When I went to a local doctor's office in Markham (north of Toronto)with flu-like symptoms, he prescribed me some medicine which felt like it was doing a number on my internals. I stopped taking it and found others ways to get better. On top of that, the doctor was quite rude and didn't tell me what I had exactly.
On another experience, I was in the Ottawa Riverside hospital tending to my injured knee after having fallen of my mountain bike on a gravel road. Gravel was embedded in my flesh and I had to wait more than two hours before someone looked after me - all while my knee was bleeding and getting infected. The only redeeming part was that the nurse who mended me was extremely nice and careful.
December 21, 2009 4:25 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk
Kevin Stover wrote:
As an American I had a heck of a time getting physio in the UK. Spent 3 weeks struggling with NHS to finally learn I could make an appointment for 12 weeks out. Tried the private route -- the quickest I could schedule was 8 weeks .. would have been a cripple for life by then. With persistence I finally booked directly with a therapist at 60 quid / 30 minutes at a private hospital in the Midlands. Took another 3 weeks to get in, but She was awesome, the equipment however was a least 20 years behind the times and each session at triple the US cash price.
Also, try buying any thing in the UK with out a chip and Pin credit card or a post code that starts with a number. Can't even top up a mobile or Oyster card except in person with notes.
I like our US health care system, wrinkles and all. I don't understand why those that would prefer the UK or Canadian system don't just move. Health care is one of the biggest reasons I would never permanently leave the US.
Bill Malcolm wrote:
The only difference in health care in Nova Scotia (another province of Canada) is that the doctors aren't rude. The wait is just as bad or worse than Clarkson experienced.
As for the whole Quebecois language thing, it's ridiculous. Never been anywhere in the world where people had such a large chip on their shoulder for imagined slights. An utter disgrace. We drive straight on through the place to get to Ontario, and leave 'em to mumble to themselves.
Michael Erasmus wrote:
I too, have experienced the slowness of the Canadian healthcare system. On Boxing Day, 2006, I was suffering from chest pains and went to the ER in Kingston, Ontario around 4 pm. During the admissions process, I was asked for my Social Insurance Number, which I did not have since I live in the US (I am NOT an American, but a permanent resident). I was told to pay an admission fee of $85 before I could be seen. After paying, I was told to have a seat and wait. I sat and waited for about three hours before I was admitted into the actual hospital. I was seen by several doctors and nurses during my visit, each who disappeared and were then replaced by others!! After having my chest shaved, being connected to a monitor, been for x-rays and a cat scan, I finally got out of the hospital at around 2 am (ten hours later !!!!!). The worst part, is that when I received a bill from the hospital - I was billed incorrectly - they charged me twice for a $1200 cat scan. If the care I received, was "free" (as for Canadians), I probably would have been content spending ten hours in a hospital waiting to be seen... but it wasn't. Now in the US, I have a "very good" healthcare plan that is jointly payed for by my employer - it costs me around $325 per month and my employer apparently matches that amount. The US healthcare is very good and the services provided are seemingly fast...but, they would probably have been subjected me to every medical test known to man!! This would in turn have left me paying off medical bills for a very long time to come, since my insurance has a co-pay of $800 and then only covers 80% of the costs!! Surely, there has to be a compromise somewhere between having a system that provides good, efficient healthcare a reasonable cost (whether paid for by the State or the patient)?
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