CANADA TODAY
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Health care in Canada

The dishonourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an unacceptably big liar and so also is the dishonorable Premier of Quebec Jean Charest , as well as many other premiers, and they all really do deserve to go to Hell now, next for allowing Canadian citizens wrongfully to be abused, to get poor health care. They have not keep their promises to reduce the hospital waiting time even. You really seriously find out firsthand how bad the Hospital system is when you go to use it, especially when you do really even need it.

I have been seriously sick the last ten years, with heart problems, diabetes, thyroid problems, etc., so I have plenty of real, definite experiences now also with good and with bad doctors, good and bad nurses, good and bad emergency rooms and good and bad Hospitals in Canada. The overall health systems clearly sucks!

Firstly the Medical waiting times not only for a hospital room but for an appointment for a doctors are longer and not shorter the last decade in truth and in reality. I have also complained about this before I cannot get the LaSalle Angrignon Hospital appointment department to get an proper regular appointment with my doctor, even every 6 months so I have to unacceptable write him a letter and visit him personally to get it.

Secondly you know those past very overcrowded emergency rooms, the Quebec government wrongfully did not solve the problem by increasibg the staff, resources, procedures.. but rather it the Quebec government passed a medicial law that sick patients cannot be held for more than two days in the emergency rooms.. and since there is no hospital room for them, even for the real sick patients, they have to be sent home, imagine sick people sent home. How cruel and totally unacceptable of our Quebec and federal government to allow this, to do this.

In the last 5 days I have received excellent medical care though at the LaSalle Angrignon Hospital die to the specific extra effort of the doctor and doctors, nurses, orderlies as well. Last Thursday my blood pressure was 190 ( average is 120) , my pulse was 110 (average is 72) and my sugar level was 30 ( average is 6) and today they are all average, normal. I had a good rest at the hospital, they stabilized my body system too.

The Hospital is located in the bad Liberal Paul Martin's riding, the bad Liberal MLA is Monique Forget.

Thirdly "Public-health authorities have yet to contain an outbreak of C. difficile diarrhea in a St. Hyacinthe hospital that has been linked to the deaths of nine patients since July. The superbug is suspected to be lurking on five floors of the building, despite the fact housekeeping staff have twice washed down patient rooms with bleach. The outbreak is baffling authorities, because it comes as rates of C. difficile infections have been declining across Quebec, especially in the Montreal region."?

Hospitals still do try to save money by not doing house cleaning... sad...

Blaming it all solely on others, the Hospital is really unacceptable, absurd..

The Government of Canada, Quebec, and also the federal , Provincial Health Ministers all now really do have to take the personal responsibility for their failure in enforcing the medical standards still even on the hospitals, doctors, nurses and staff.. this blame on the others buck passing approach is more unacceptable lies as to how adequate our medical care system is.. when it is clearly not. The governments were fully now aware of the problem now and any ordinary person can see that not enough has been done in the last two years and many people have needlessly died for it.. Fire the Quebec Health minister for wrongfully allowing even more people to die now.. Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard admitted there were major breaches in basic hygiene practices at the hospital before Oct. 19, when administrators launched their massive disinfection campaign. There’s no excuse for it, not even a lack of money, Couillard said. "How much is it going to cost the hospital to have all these [C. difficile] patients in intensive care units, in isolation? Much more than it would have cost them to keep their guard high and keep all the measures in place." Couillard said the outbreak in Saint-Hyacinthe should serve as a lesson to all health centres that the spread of strong and resistant bacteria is inevitable in the future. "The hospitals [are dealing with] infections that are not going to go away. We are always going to have problems with this, in 10, 15, 20 years, even with new bugs we don't know about right now."" What the Quebec Minister himself absurdly had saved money by not enforcing the health standards and health regulations? Surely by now this quite useless health minister should have known that need for enforcing all laws and regulations even of our so called professionals now. and is the federal government and related Health Minister any better now themselves? NO! They are all equally guilty in all of this and should all be fired, recalled too. Their failure to deal with this todate and allowing many people to die is the same as AS AN ACT OF murder.

"Eleventh patient dies of C. difficile at Quebec hospital. ST-HYACINTHE, Que. — The C. difficile bacteria has claimed an 11th life at the same hospital, the institution said Tuesday. The Honore-Mercier Hospital in St-Hyacinthe, east of Montreal, confirmed that 31 patients have been infected since July. An internal report prepared for the hospital cited poor hygiene for the outbreak. The report by an official responsible for disease control noted inadequate disinfection measures, including one bed that was used by three infected patients who died." This is the 21 st century and not the dark ages.. basic hygiene is being neglected.. wow!

There has been a clear progress of the treatment of this problem in a Montreal Hospital in their emergency department particularly by the procurement, and usages of disposal waste containers for sold fetal wastes, urine.. but this is not enough. The lack of overall good Hygene here is absolutely appalling now and unacceptable still .

----- Original Message -----

To: Prime Minister/Premier ministre

Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 4:03 PM

Subject: Re: Office of the Prime Minister / Cabinet du Premier ministre

Thank you for your acknowledgment of my email but still more importantly now what about insuring us all to real access to decent, adequate medical care.. instead of us having to fight with the Hospital administrators to try to get real medical services.. I even had a problem get decent heart care services as you know .. next I have problem accessing my medical care doctor, and I even had problems accessing the medical services for my diabetes. I have had now to fight many times to get decent medical services and that is both unacceptable and absurd, really absurd. No one can deny my real personal experiences and witnesses with this poor medical care system of yours.

"Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research Health Care, Environment Top Issues in Canada November 1, 2006

- Canadian adults remain concerned about their medical services, according to a poll by Innovative Research Group for the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute. 24 per cent of respondents think health care is the most important issue facing Canada today. The environment is second on the list with 20 per cent, followed by the economy with 11 per cent, social issues with eight per cent, defence and security also with eight per cent, federal/provincial relations with five per cent, and crime with four per cent. In Canada, the universality criterion establishes that all residents of a province or territory must be entitled to the insured, public-run health services provided by their provincial or territorial health care insurance plan on uniform terms and conditions. Canadians renewed the House of Commons in January. The Conservative party—led by Stephen Harper—received 36.3 per cent of the vote, and secured 124 seats in the 308-member lower house. Since February, Harper leads a minority administration after more than 12 years of government by the Liberal party. The Conservatives discussed the possibility of allowing a combination of public and private health care delivery, and vowed to improve waiting times for patients by the end of this year. Last month, Harper announced that his government would "set in motion Canada’s first comprehensive and integrated approach to tackle air pollution and greenhouse gases and in doing so deliver better air quality and address climate change."On Oct. 31, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton hinted at a no-confidence motion on the government, saying, "I’m not really convinced that the prime minister understands the urgency of the climate change crisis, the threat that climate change proposes and the urgency to move quickly. Far too much emphasis on consultations that could go on for considerable periods of time as opposed to action."

Polling Data
What is the most important issue facing Canada today?
Health care 24%
The environment 20%
The economy 11%
Social issues 8%
Defence and security 8%
Federal/provincial relations 5%
Crime 4%
Civil rights and freedoms 3%
Multiculturalism 3%
Relations with the U.S. 3%
Trade 1%
Other 7%

Source: Innovative Research Group / Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,839 Canadian adults, conducted on Oct. 26 and Oct. 27, 2006. Margin of error is 2 per cent."

WASHINGTON (CP) - Canada lags far behind other countries except the United States in an international study of effective primary health care for patients released Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund. The survey of more than 6,000 doctors in seven countries gave Canada poor marks on several aspects of patient care, including wait times for tests, use of electronic medical records, doctors available after hours, multi-discipline teams to treat chronic illness and financial incentives for improving quality of care. The survey suggested Canada has a long way to go on many fronts to catch up with the other countries, which included the United Kingdom, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Germany. Only 23 per cent of Canadian doctors use electronic medical records, the lowest percentage and far behind 98 per cent in the Netherlands. Most Canadian physicians don't use computers to prescribe medications, access test results and hospital records, receive alerts about potential problems with drug doses or interactions or know when patients are overdue for essential care. Other findings include:
-Fifty-one per cent of Canadian physicians report patients face long waits for diagnostic tests, compared with six per cent in Australia.
-Canada's doctors wait longest for full hospital discharge reports or don't get them at all.
-Forty-seven per cent have arrangements for after-hours care so people can avoid going to an emergency room, compared with 95 per cent in the Netherlands. Only the United States is lower than Canada at 40 per cent.
-Thirty-two per cent routinely work with multi-discipline teams and non-physicians to treat chronic illnesses, compared with 81 per cent in the United Kingdom.
-Forty-one per cent report getting government financial incentives to improve care, compared with 95 per cent in the U.K.
-Canada had the lowest rate of doctors giving plans for home care to patients with chronic diseases.
-Only 27 per cent of doctors set formal targets for clinical performance, compared with 70 per cent in Germany and the U.K. Few collect information on patient satisfaction or clinical outcomes.

Michael McBane at the Canadian Health Coalition said that some doctors are driving up waiting times by protecting their turf and aren't held accountable to the public, resulting in misappropriation of scarce resources. "There's a lot of inappropriate referrals to specialists. We're not using physicians properly. They don't spend enough time with patients to do the prevention work." That's not going to change, he said, unless Ottawa stands up to the profession and forces change on how they operate. "It's not acceptable for the prime minister to shirk responsibility for leadership in health care," said McBane.

it is basically true that " the schedules of busy ( good) family physicians are filled and, given physician shortages and increasing patient loads, the limited number of family physicians who are available must use triage approaches and simply cannot see all patients in as timely a manner as they and their patients might hope," but the triage cannot still help them if there is no hospital beds available as is too often the case...

"Over one-quarter of Quebecers do not have a family doctor. That according to a recent poll done for the College of Family Physicians in Canada. Across the country, 5-million Canadians - or 17 percent of the population - are without a family physician"... never mind also access to a real specialists like a cardiologist too? too many family doctors also are solely charge card happy and tend to be still real incompetent when it comes to diagnosing major sickness still too.. I know I have seen 55 doctors now at least.. on top of all that more family doctors will not help if there is still not more Hospital beds.. there is a real shortage of hospital beds as I discovered firsthand staying in the emergency ward last week..