According to the Canadian Adverse Events Study (2004), an estimated 185,000 hospital admissions are associated with adverse events each year resulting in the deaths of 24,000 Canadians annually. Around 70,000 of these adverse events are deemed to be preventable.
You’ve gone to the hospital for emergency medical treatment or surgery. You suffer an adverse event that [...]
In June 2009, the Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, Mr. Jack Layton, travelled to Washington, D.C. to deliver a speech extolling the virtues of Canadian health care. His speech forgot to mention a few notable points like why so many of our politicians choose to leave Canada for medical care, the [...]
What is preventing the necessary changes for improving the Canadian health care system? It is fear. Patients are afraid to speak out for fear of being denied access to care. Health care providers fear losing their jobs or being professionally ostracized. Health care policy-makers and decision-makers are afraid of losing their political power. This fear [...]
Ask someone who is waiting for a test or surgery, or who cannot find a family doctor what is wrong with Canadian health care and they will say “access”. Ask a patient who has experienced its medical failings and they will say “accountability”. A doctor, nurse or other health care provider will tell you it’s [...]
In June 2006, I survived an adverse event in a hospital while giving birth to my daughter. In the weeks that followed my condition continued to deteriorate. A lack of accessibility and accountability in the Canadian health care system forced me to become my own patient advocate. Thanks to the internet, I was able find [...]
Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a “Birmingham” hip resurfacing surgery as the best medical option. But — the government decided that Mr. Murray, who was 57, was “too old” and said no to the surgery. He was informed that [...]
In 2006, Sylvia DeVries was gaining weight and convinced something was wrong. After doctors told her her nothing was wrong, she headed across the border. When an emergency room in Detroit diagnosed ovarian cancer, she brought the report back to her doctor in Windsor, Ontario. “He was visibly shaken and was devastated. His frustration was [...]
Some people fancy all health care debates to be a case of Canadian Health Care vs. American. Not so. According to the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems, neither Canada nor the USA ranks in the top 25.
Improving the Canadian Healthcare System does not mean we must emulate the American system, [...]
Christmas 1999, 50 year old Toronto science teacher, Adolfo Flora, was diagnosed with liver cancer – the result of a tainted blood transfusion that gave him Hepatitis C. He needed a partial liver transplant, but his doctors told him that a deceased-donor liver was near-impossible to procure and he wasn’t likely to survive.
Adolfo [...]
Shirley Healey was diagnosed with mesenteric ischemia. The main artery to her intestines was blocked, and she’d lost over 50 pounds waiting for medical care. Her vascular surgeon, Robert Ellett, said “The last patient I had with exactly the same problem, he waited for three months and he lost so much weight it looked like [...]