Canadian Heathcare system sucks!!

[Neally]

Yes, it's painful. It sucks. But something that requires immediate need of an ambulance, and the paramedics that come with it? An ambulance and paramedics that could be dealing with a gunshot victim, someone in a car accident, a heart attack, or seizure?

The point is that why are they stretched so thin that any call to an ambulance would have to wait this long? You can have cheap or fast, not both.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Nurses are overworked and understaffed, you can't expect to have good service under these conditions.

So it is just like the US then.

 

[D'rok]

Nurses are overworked and understaffed, you can't expect to have good service under these conditions.

I can, do, and have had. Every time. Both here in Ottawa and back home in Alberta. Cue the dueling anecdotes....!

 

[Cleon]

I think it's indicative that we don't have the means to maintain the system in place as is. Alot of people are turning to the private system, and I don't blame them.

The problem with that logic is that nurses are overworked and understaffed here in the US, too. Like wait times, this is not an issue that's limited to universal health care systems.

 

[D'rok]

I think it's indicative that we don't have the means to maintain the system in place as is. Alot of people are turning to the private system, and I don't blame them.

What private system?

 

[Pardalis]

The problem with that logic is that nurses are overworked and understaffed here in the US, too. Like wait times, this is not an issue that's limited to universal health care systems.

But it's not the wonder system that will solve everything either.

 

[Pardalis]

What private system?

Private clinics, maybe my choice of the word "system" was too broad.

 

[Cleon]

The point is that why are they stretched so thin that any call to an ambulance would have to wait this long? You can have cheap or fast, not both.

They're not, necessarily. They're allocating their resources based where they're needed most. Which is how it should be.

This is not "any call to an ambulance." This is an unnecessary call to an ambulance. If they had to wait two hours with a bleeding head wound, yes, that would be unacceptable. But two hours for an ambulance you shouldn't have called in the first place? Perfectly acceptable, IMO.

 

[Oliver]

Nurses are overworked and understaffed, you can't expect to have good service under these conditions.

Well, how much do Canadians pay for their healthcare then? According to Wiki, you pay more than we do in Germany and you do have much less medical staff. Why is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

 

[Cleon]

But it's not the wonder system that will solve everything either.

Who's saying that it is?

Every health care system has problems and horror stories. For-profit, socialized, doesn't matter. There's no such thing as "perfect."

However, blaming UHC systems for problems that are shared by non-UHC systems is rather misleading.

 

[ponderingturtle]

They're not, necessarily. They're allocating their resources based where they're needed most. Which is how it should be.

This is not "any call to an ambulance." This is an unnecessary call to an ambulance. If they had to wait two hours with a bleeding head wound, yes, that would be unacceptable. But two hours for an ambulance you shouldn't have called in the first place? Perfectly acceptable, IMO.

Well the problem with this is that with out some trained individual on the sceen you can never be sure how urgent the patient is. Hell I have had a nurse tell me that dying patients did not really need to go to the hospital as there was nothing wrong with her. Altered mental status, being in shock and obvious labored breathing was not enough of a clue for this nurse that something was seriously wrong.

 

[David Wong]

Has anybody else had the experience I mentioned above, which is that most insurance plans (in America) would deny a claim for an ambulance trip in the dislocated shoulder situation? It was my understanding that any time you could have just as easily have been transported by a friend or taxi or MediVan service etc, that they wouldn't pay the couple hundred dollars for an Ambulance trip.

Maybe it varies from policy to policy but I have real trouble believing that my plan, for instance, would pay for an ambulance ride because I was feeling nauseous. That's incredibly wasteful and (as has been pointed out) is taking the crews away from what could be a real emergency.

 

[Cleon]

Well the problem with this is that with out some trained individual on the sceen you can never be sure how urgent the patient is. Hell I have had a nurse tell me that dying patients did not really need to go to the hospital as there was nothing wrong with her. Altered mental status, being in shock and obvious labored breathing was not enough of a clue for this nurse that something was seriously wrong.

That's all true, but if you get a call for a dislocated shoulder, you don't need to be heavily trained in medical science to know that this doesn't require the immediate presence of paramedics.

 

[Neally]

They're not, necessarily. They're allocating their resources based where they're needed most. Which is how it should be.

You call it allocating, I call it rationing. Whatever. A two hour ambulance wait for any reason tells me that they have way too little resources available.

 

[D'rok]

Well, how much do Canadians pay for their healthcare then? According to Wiki, you pay more than we do in Germany and you do have much less medical staff. Why is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

Federalism probably. Health Care is a provincial power. It makes administering, funding and regulating a national system very tricky.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Has anybody else had the experience I mentioned above, which is that most insurance plans (in America) would deny a claim for an ambulance trip in the dislocated shoulder situation? It was my understanding that any time you could have just as easily have been transported by a friend or taxi or MediVan service etc, that they wouldn't pay the couple hundred dollars for an Ambulance trip.

I know that in that case I would have had to be very careful in who I wrote my paperwork as an EMT. You see private insurers really do not want to pay out money, so they look not for how medicaly nessacary the transport was, but are there terms in the Prehospital care report that mean they get to deny it. So if a woman is having difficulty breathing you do not want to mention that she could walk fine when you picked her up.

Of course you also can not lie either. So writing paperwork as an EMT for a for profit company is a bit of an artform.

But yes I could certainly see getting a talking to by the billing department if I transported someone with a dislocated shoulder and mentioned them standing or walking. They would be concerned that it would make collecting more difficult.

Of course there is also the issue of doctors scheduleing ambulance trips for patients who would be fine with an ambulette but insurance only covers the more expensive ambulance. So they try to save the patients money by going with the more expensive trip.

 

[Cleon]

You call it allocating, I call it rationing. Whatever. A two hour ambulance wait for any reason tells me that they have way too little resources available.

Then you're getting the information you want to get, and not looking at the situation objectively.

Even here in the US, if you call emergency services for a non-emergency situation, you're going to be waiting. If you go to the ER with an ear infection, you will probably wind up waiting for a few hours so they can take care of the actual emergencies. If you call 911 asking for an ambulance because you dislocated your shoulder, they're going to tell you to get a friend to drive you, or take a cab. If you do get an ambulance, yes, you're not only going to be waiting for it, you're going to be paying for it, too.

Because they have real emergencies they need to attend to, and you're wasting their time.

 

[Pardalis]

Well, how much do Canadians pay for their healthcare then? According to Wiki, you pay more than we do in Germany and you do have much less medical staff. Why is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

Your link provides you with good answers.

 

[ponderingturtle]

That's all true, but if you get a call for a dislocated shoulder, you don't need to be heavily trained in medical science to know that this doesn't require the immediate presence of paramedics.

Sure but you need to make sure that it really is a dislocated shoulder. It could be a poorly reported heart attack. Random people calling in make very poor people to determine what is wrong with a patient.

 

[Pardalis]

Who's saying that it is?

Every health care system has problems and horror stories. For-profit, socialized, doesn't matter. There's no such thing as "perfect."

Ideologically I'm all for the universal system, but realistically, I doubt it can be maintained the way it was. It's been in decline for the last decade or so.