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My Mother and the Canadian Health Care System.
My Mom and Dad were taking one of those scenic cross-country trips on the Canadian railroad last September. The trip was nice, if uneventful, until the train pulled into Kamloops. There, my Mom, who is in her late sixties, stepped off the train onto an unstable box used as a step, stumbled, and fell, spraining one ankle and rolling the other, breaking it in three places.
The ambulance took her to the emergency room of the local hospital, where they waited. And waited. It was twelve hours before they could move her from the ER and into a ward. No ice, no treatment apart from what the paramedics did (first rate, by the way), and no telling when it would be possible to operate. They were assured, however, that an operation to repair the ankle would occur in no more than three days, because after that complications can set in.
There was morphine, though. Lots and lots of morphine.
The ward had four beds. One patient was a man with a broken ankle (great night for ankles, I guess); the other two were old ladies with dementia. One of the ladies was very frail; the other one was active and liked to get out of bed and lead the other one around the room. When my Mom asked her if that was a good idea, she said, "I used to be a nurse, I know what I'm doing".
My mom asked the nurse if she could have some ice for her ankle; she was informed they had run out of ice. Yes, those exact words. She then removed the ace bandage from the sprained ankle for the night, rolled it up, and placed next to the ankle. The next morning, another nurse came in and my Mom asked her to put the bandage back on. The nurse refused, because it wasn't on the chart. Nurses were good, generally, but only seen in the morning and evening, unless called -- and sometimes not even then.
For meals, an orderly would come by, tell everyone to clear their tables, throw trays of food on them, and leave, taking about as much time as it took to write this sentence. For personal hygine, each patient was given a pail of soapy water, a sponge, and a towel.
Near the end of her stay in the ward, the man with the broken ankle left, and was replaced with a very sick young woman who kept vomiting. The doctor put her there pending the results of her test. The woman asked if they could do more tests, but was informed that they were limited to one test at a time.
I wish I was making this up.
My Mom and Dad spent about ten days there, three days longer than they really needed to; the hospital could not find the doctor who had to sign their release forms.
The operation? It was done after 36 hours. They put the ankle in a plaster cast, which the medical folks in Kansas City found really...antiquated. The ankle has not really healed well, and swells up all time, over six months later.
On the plus side, it only cost them $14000 US.
I don't blame Canada, in any way, but I really don't want their healthcare here.
Thanks for reading.
The ambulance took her to the emergency room of the local hospital, where they waited. And waited. It was twelve hours before they could move her from the ER and into a ward. No ice, no treatment apart from what the paramedics did (first rate, by the way), and no telling when it would be possible to operate. They were assured, however, that an operation to repair the ankle would occur in no more than three days, because after that complications can set in.
There was morphine, though. Lots and lots of morphine.
The ward had four beds. One patient was a man with a broken ankle (great night for ankles, I guess); the other two were old ladies with dementia. One of the ladies was very frail; the other one was active and liked to get out of bed and lead the other one around the room. When my Mom asked her if that was a good idea, she said, "I used to be a nurse, I know what I'm doing".
My mom asked the nurse if she could have some ice for her ankle; she was informed they had run out of ice. Yes, those exact words. She then removed the ace bandage from the sprained ankle for the night, rolled it up, and placed next to the ankle. The next morning, another nurse came in and my Mom asked her to put the bandage back on. The nurse refused, because it wasn't on the chart. Nurses were good, generally, but only seen in the morning and evening, unless called -- and sometimes not even then.
For meals, an orderly would come by, tell everyone to clear their tables, throw trays of food on them, and leave, taking about as much time as it took to write this sentence. For personal hygine, each patient was given a pail of soapy water, a sponge, and a towel.
Near the end of her stay in the ward, the man with the broken ankle left, and was replaced with a very sick young woman who kept vomiting. The doctor put her there pending the results of her test. The woman asked if they could do more tests, but was informed that they were limited to one test at a time.
I wish I was making this up.
My Mom and Dad spent about ten days there, three days longer than they really needed to; the hospital could not find the doctor who had to sign their release forms.
The operation? It was done after 36 hours. They put the ankle in a plaster cast, which the medical folks in Kansas City found really...antiquated. The ankle has not really healed well, and swells up all time, over six months later.
On the plus side, it only cost them $14000 US.
I don't blame Canada, in any way, but I really don't want their healthcare here.
Thanks for reading.
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