Darryl's Blog
Emergency healthcare in Canada
Charlene blogged last week about what happened when she took our daughter to emergency last week:
When we arrived at the ER there were NO nurses in at the reception triage to assess incoming patients - None. After waiting patiently for two or three minutes I requested attention from a registration staff person. They paged a nurse. No response. We had obviously arrived during a shift change. It was a full ten minutes before staff arrived to triage Christina and another individual who had arrived before we did. Have I missed an annoucement? When did "back in 10 minutes" become acceptable intake practice at an Ontario hospital Emergency Department?
The shocking thing is what my brother Arthur added in his comment:
Hey, last summer a friend of mine who is an auto mechanic lost three fingers on his right hand in an accident at work. He showed up at the Cobourg Hospital and sat for three hours, (THREE HOURS!!!!) without pain killers, waiting for a doctor to see him. By that time, even though he had brought his fingers with him in a bag of ice, it was too late to do anything to save them.
Hard to believe that stories like this can be told in a country like Canada.
It all started under that Harris guy.....
May I point out something else? A friend of mine married a Chinese doctor sent here by her government to do some research in Internal medicine at the Banting and Best Institute in Toronto.
Not just any doctor. She is the head of Internal Medicine at the hospital in China. She is a PhD in Internal Medicine. She tutors other PhD and Masters students. She has done research in Wales and Japan as well as Canada. She has had 23 articles published in International Medical Journals... in English as well as Chinese. She has had a few books on Diabetes published as well.
She attended a conference in Florida last year and presented the findings of her research here in Toronto at one of the most prestigious Symposiums in America, and had those research notes published as well.
She is back in China... and is one of the most famous doctors in that country.
She can get a job in Ontario as a research assistant, or she can teach at the University of Toronto Medical School. But she cannot practice medicine here. Not at any level, not even as a G.P.
Go figure.
and as I understand things... the issue is even worse in rural Canada where the number of doctors are even fewer!
Only when we as Canadian make this an election issue will it change. As long as we accept mediocracy ... nothing will change.