Saturday, December 11, 2010

Canadians and Health Care

I have some friends from Canada staying with us this week. Their son severely twisted and sprained his ankle coming down the stairs the other day so we took him to the Emergency Room at St. Pats. The folks at St. Pats were fantastic and professional as always.

My Canadian friends had never visited a US hospital and were impressed with it's cleanliness, staff, doctors and modern equipment. They were particularly impressed with how quickly their son got in to see a doctor - it was about half an hour from the time we checked in to the time the doctor looked at him. They further said they would probably have spent four to five hours in the waiting room in their Canadian hospital and be seen by an exhausted and distracted doctor. As a result, they cannot understand why Americans want to change our system from what it is now. I clarified to them that it is only a minority of extremists who want the change and have manipulated the system to get the current law through. Most Americans don't want it.

Their boy is fine. Sever sprain and he's wearing a boot.

1 comment:

  1. On the other hand, my son was taken to the ER at a hospital in Lacey/Olympia, WA with a serious hand infection (red streaks up his arm)and unable to sit up while waiting for triage - from 8:30 pm to a bed in his room (where he spent 15 days)and beginning of treatment: 6.5 hours. What a nightmare!! And he had insurance. I don't advocate ObamaCare, but I've seen that ER at 10:30 pm and it's full of people who look like they may have a cold or a tooth ache or need to get in out of the cold - or as one mother put it: "check out both kids - one's got a runny nose. . ."

    If I had an answer, I'd share it.

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