Health Care System

[pmckenna]

How do the rest of you feel about the proposed 'third way' that Minister Evans and the premier are touting ?

If doctors are going to be able to work in either the private or public system, I tend to think that we will have a greater shortage of doctors in the public system, I may be out to lunch on this one though.

The entire health system in AB. hasn't improved with the advent of health Regions. The huge beauocracy within our own health region is mind boggling, and it certainly isn't unique. Certainly enhanced technology has added costs to the delivery of health care but there is so much waste in the health regions it is disgusting.
In my community patients are sent to four different communities for specialized tests or to see specialists. Most times it means several months wait to see a specialists and if surgery is necessary it is several more months wait.

When we moved to this community there were two doctors, operating out of one clinic. Within 25 years there were three clinics with a total of 15 doctors all with hospital privileges.
Now there are still three clinics, 8 doctors and only three with hospital privilges, and the population of the area is five times what it was .
Ambulance service is still only Basic Life Support coaches with the exception of one Advanced Life Support coach operating out of the largest urban centre.

[cowman]

Not much sense having a public system if that system can't deliver anything? What do people do now if they can afford it?...Go to the States! When a big shot politician (martin, Layton) need some help do they get in line with the peasants?
Do we have a public system now? Every doctor around is a private corporation? If the government was sincere about getting service up and prices down they would start to recognize the credentials of foreign doctors and take away the rights of the medical association to keep a cap on practicing doctors? The fact is the doctors have "supply management:, no different than the milk and egg business...the only difference is the taxpayer provides them with a free barn(hospital)!
Hey if Ralph can get the costs down by using private clinics then that is good? We already have "two tiered" health care? If you want to live and have the money you go to the States...if you want to die or don't have the money you use the Canadian health care system!

[cowman]

That's the problem cowman. Should top quality health care only be for those who can afford it ?
Alberta lags well behind the rest of the country in covering the cost of some cancer medications. After having watch a family member suffer and die with cancer, and watch her parents casn in every possible RRSP etc. to pay for medication she needed when not in hospital I have a real issue with it. If the waste was cleaned out of the entire health care system there would be no need for a third way !!
I agree those who can afford it will go elsewhere but we do need to ensure that there are ample facilities and health care professionals here in AB working within the public system.

[cowman]

Well we know the system we have doesn't work? And it is unlikely we can ever clean up the waste? You start to try and it is the little people of the health care system(who do the actual work) who go down the road...not the big shots?
Ralph Klein asked a very important question about healthcare a few years back? How much of our total budget should we be spending on healthcare? Is 30% enough, how about 50%, how about everything? Where does it end?
I believe now Alberta spends more per capitta on health care than any other province? Also on education?
When Alberta was basically forced to join medicare, Ernest Manning(premier) said that eventually medicare would break this country and create a monster that we couldn't stop. Now I would say he wasn't far off the mark?
Whenever you take away peoples duty to be responsible for themselves, you take away an essential human element? You create a nanny state where innovation and responsibility are supressed! It is very evident in this society? Everyone feels "entitled" to have a good life, have all the benifits, have the government take care of them...and do as little as possible!...In other words the welfare state?
You create a state where people are so gullible that they believe the thieves and crooks and control freaks have your best interests at heart and know more than you do! It is a slippery slope back to slavery?

[cowman]

Oh by the way emerald: My local vet can do a lot better stitch than any of the doctors around! He showed me where he stitched up his face when he got kicked under the eye...did it with a mirror!
I told him that looked pretty darned good and knew who I'd be calling the next time I needed to be sewn up!

[greybeard]

Speaking of vets, the story over here is they rent the MRI after hours to do dogs. If you need an MRI in Sask, you are probably looking at 6 to 18 month waits. The Vet can probably get the dog in within a week. Maybe we already have two tiers here. One for us socialists, and one for dogs. How do the private MRI seem to get you in within 2 weeks. They must be doing the bulk of the work, as I don’t know anyone using anything else.
The unions run the health care system over here. They turn the lights out at 4 pm on the dot. The waiting lists don’t bother them because they don’t book appointments after 3:45 so the chairs in the waiting room are empty when they go home at 4.
Our system is like the old apple barrel story. It’s rotten in the center and will soon be totally useless.

[stubblejumper]

Wait time for MRI's depends on the situation. I was in a MRI in less than an hour.

[Horse]

Cowman you have the Klien docturn down pat But did you ever stop to think it is time to fix what we have or is it that you are amognst the new rich and want to hob nob with the bigshots at the health care facility,
I have not heard one thing out of Ralphs mouth that in any way lowers costs all he has said is that he has the money and wants prefered treatment.Of course they still need us peons to build and maintain the hospitals for them when they need it, too bad some of ralphs friends cant explain how this idea will lower costs.
If the money going into private clinics was added to the public system how much difference would that make.

[cowman]

Well Horse I think the idea is whoever can provide the most bang for our buck? So if "Clinic A" can provide the service for $200 and the public sector "Clinic B" costs $300...then it makes sense to go with "Clinic A"?
Now "Clinic A" might not be unionized or something, or have half the staff on vacation or something? But as the guy getting treated...does he care? Doesn't he want timely treatment?
I think that is what Ralph is saying?
I will note in my own municipality that when they privatized the public works operations they saved $1.5 million a year! Now that is what they claim and I won't comment any further on that other than if that is really true, then the public sector was completely out of control!
Further, Horse? I am not some sort of millionaire! And I definitely will never be hobnobbing with the rich and kissing their butts...as you put it! I'm just an old Alberta country boy trying to make it through this life the best way I can! LOL

[cowman]

Sorry that should read "ClinicB" unionized...well you get my drift!

[WoolyBear]

Waiting list for using fancy medical equipment would be so much shorter if they could just staff and run the machines 24/7. My wife had to have radiation therapy in Winnipeg a number of years ago. It involved 20 session that each took about 15 minutes from in to out each day. Because if fell over Thanksgiving there was no treatment on Monday, 4 the 1st week, nothing on weekends, 3 sessions of 5 the following week, and then finishing up the last session the following Monday. For us it meant and extra trip into and out of Winnipeg.

Train the technicians, and run these machine like a combine (Not the best example actually as they sit in the shed for 10 months) but if the work is there....... use it!

[wmoebis]

Earlier this month I got a chance to whitness our health care system.I was astounded.
There were elderly people laying in beds for a whole week with broken hips, arms and legs waiting for surgery. They were all cut off food and water for 24hrs. then if by 11pm they hadn't been called for operation they were offered snacks and cut off again at midnight for the next day incase they got called.
The 85 yr old senior lady I was with broke her arm on monday noon and was operated on at 6 pm Sat. While she was in operating roon they wheeled in a 17 year old boy that had fallen while sking just three hours sooner. He got right in.
B.S. All the money in the world doesn't fix this. Heads rolling does.

[WoolyBear]

Something to add too about the health care system. We have all heard or experienced the inefficiency and inequities in the system, the MEDIA has been SURE TO TELL US! Very rarely do they ever report all the good things about it. We don't hear about the staff that DO work hard inspite of the problems. We don't hear of the many sicknesses and fractures, and healings that are achieved.

When all we hear is the negative, many people that might otherwise have great ideas to improve things, might just think......its beyond help, why bother trying to fix it.

I think that the best place to start the "Head rolling" is with senior administration. With 6 figure salaries usually starting with a 2 or even 3..... they should be held accountable.

[cakadu]

Trouble with private health care cowman is that the profits will not be brought back into the system, rather they will go to those that own the clinic. I don't imagine that private is going to be cheaper than public - in fact I would say it is going to be more expensive because they will have people that can afford to pay.

Who gets to decide where the imaginary cut-off line is going to be for the haves and the have-nots?

I agree that if the money went to where it was supposed to go instead of to "management" things could be a lot better.

People are aging, countless people are getting diagnosed with cancer every day, there are all sorts of health problems that one doesn't bring on themselves. Some heart conditions are heriditary for example and people have congenital defects. Not everything is brought on by abusing ourselves with our chosen lifestyles and/or social conditions.

If doctors choose to work in the private system, then to my way of thinking they cannot and should not be allowed to practice in the public system. You make your choice and you live with it - you can't have it both ways.

[cowman]

Well I think Ralphs main idea was not to so much have an out and out private system but a private system that worked within the public system? Sort of like instead of the government building a clinic and staffing it, they just contract the work out?
In reality we already have that in a way? The doctor is not an employee but a private contractor billing the government for services?
If it is cheaper to let a private contractor do a service than what the public sector costs...doesn't that make sense? Consider other government areas that have been privatized...liquor stores, licensing agencies, highway maitenance? Would we really want to go back to a public system in any of these areas?
The media doesn't treat this whole subject fairly. They like to scaremonger with the idea you will die if you can't pay...and that totally is not what Ralph is saying? We already have a scenario where the rich can get treated if they pay..you go to the USA! But I think if you look at Ralphs "third way" that isn't what he is saying at all?