This is the reason your ER doctors are leaving
www.thestar.com
You don’t have a family doctor, and you can’t get an admission bed. So you end up waiting and waiting in the ER for a physician who might not be able to help much, writes Dr. Brian Wall.
  • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
    41·
    1 year ago

    In some provinces there is a somewhat obvious scheme driven by those who deliberately underfund and sabotage the health authority so they can have the excuse to say " Public healthcare doesn’t work. We need to privitize." It is a scam.

    Public healthcare in the rest of the country is doing poorly too, but it didn’t used to be this way. Canadian healthcare used to be top tier, but it hasn’t kept pace. I don’t believe this is because of any inherent flaw in the original healthcare system. Population growth in some areas without concurrent infrastructure investment is a factor, as well as other political issues not related to socialism have played a part. Covid of course put a strain on the already stretched system that hasn’t ever really recovered.

    I am convinced the Canadian healthcare system could be restored to its previous functional state, if it were made a priority. Unfortunately for Canadians, the liberal (federal) government can’t be relied on to do anything, nor the provinces as far as I can tell.

      • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
        3·
        1 year ago

        Slow course correction is definitely an issue, but it’s not the whole problem, and privitization is certainly not the solution to Canada’s healthcare woes.

        There’s two points I want to make about this: 1. The belief that absolutely everything should be made a commodity and put up for sale because absolutely free market capitalism make everything better is not a conservative position. Conservative ideals are permanence, reliability, and not fixing things when they ain’t broke, as the Americans say. Conservatism is about maintaining the practices and institutions that have proven over time to serve the common good. A lot of people conflate neoliberalism with conservative ideas but they are not the same. Neoliberalism and it’s deranged stepchild libertarianism can fuck right off.

        1. Privitization of natural monopolies has been shown over and over to not work. I assert healthcare is a natural monopoly in the same way as water. When you need water, there is no choice but to bargain with whomever has control of the water pipes. Similarly, If you have a burst appendix, you can not shop around for the best priced surgery. The similarity between hospitals and woterworks doesn’t stop there. The both require a lot of infrastructure to build, maintain and operate.

        So keeping water as our example, the world bank through the IFC has pushed for water privitization all over the world since the 80’s. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe and south America, it has been bad news everywhere.I challenge anyone to come up with a successful example. You can’t.

        In Canada, another kind of water service has not benefited from privatisation: BC ferries. The results have been 50% higher fares with reduced service. Imagine: a reliable service at a fair price that operates for years, until 2003 when it is decided to transform the crown corporation into a private one for higher cost and less reliability. Same story with Atlantic ferries. There are plenty more examples. If you know any American Servicemen, ask them about private corporate contracts servicing military bases. You will hear some stories of the absurd.

        My conclusion: “The private system” is great for a lot of things, but not for the things that people rely on to keep society as a whole going; Like roads and ferries, like police and fire service, like our armed forces, like healthcare.

      • PizzaMan@lemm.ee
        2·
        1 year ago

        The private system for its faults is not constrained by a monolithic bureaucratic system.

        Corporations are just as bureaucratic. But it’s worse because a corporation’s only goal is profit, at the cost of your health.

        Government is not bound by such a flaw.

          • PizzaMan@lemm.ee
            31·
            1 year ago

            There are literally not for profit corporations

            Non-profit corps make up a minority of all corps.

            many corporations have primary goals that are not maximizing profits.

            Talk is cheap.

            Family doctors don’t have to work for giant corporations

            But they are beholden to them through insurance, one of the most bureaucratic parts of american life.

              • PizzaMan@lemm.ee
                3·
                1 year ago

                Just about every restaurant, coffee shop, hardware store, mechanic shop is a corporation, many of them have goals other than profit.

                Sure they can have those, but the only real goal is profit. Those things would exist if they were not profitable.

                Please explain how Family doctors are beholden to insurance companies.

                Are you joking?

  • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
    31·
    1 year ago

    …universal access to our broader system is a joke when getting a GP is increasingly about who you know, faster care is awarded to those who shout the loudest, and those who can afford it pay for private imaging or fly to the U.S. to get more timely care.

    Is the reason Canada’s ER doctors are leaving because…ER doctors are leaving? The author says moral injury to patients by making them wait…but isn’t that just because there’s not enough ER doctors or general practitioners?

    It sounds like universal healthcare as social service is being starved for resource until it collapses.

    • Throwaway@lemm.eeOPM
      11·
      1 year ago

      The way I read it is that they’re leaving because they can’t take care of everyone properly. I’ve been in similar situations, not as life threatening, and not being able to complete all your work properly, and seeing others suffer because of that inability fucks up your mental state.