The health care system continues to fail Canadians

blackbird · May 23

I made a few phone calls to the medical clinics in several small towns and found that in most if one wants to find a doctor, they must go on a waiting list and it could take 1-1/2 or 2 years to find a doctor. The only alternative is in some places a walk-in clinic is open for a few hours a couple times a week or one could travel to the nearest hospital ER and wait hours there to see a doctor. The hours a walk-in clinic is open varies from one place to another. However, walk-in clinics and ERs do not provide the same level of care as one's own doctor. They generally do not know the patient as well as one's own personal doctor does. I do not feel the level of care is the same in a walk-in clinic or ER. It is more like an assembly line service or fast food service compared with a good quality restaurant service.

Millions of Canadians do not have their own doctor and very little if anything seems to be changing. This results in many people in Canada who have medical problems or needs are being left behind. This results is a kind of two level system for the care of Canadians. Some get reasonable medical care while millions are not getting the care they should. This also becomes worse as people get older. Many people will live shorter live spans as a result. All of this is unnecessary if government took the proper steps to fix the system. One thing governments and political leaders should be doing is studying the health care systems in European countries. Some of them reportedly have fairly good systems. We should not be locked into a failing system because of left wing ideology that only government can take care of us. They can't; they are under too many other demands and are governed by politics as well.

The only solution I see is having private care alongside the public system. If we found enough doctors in the world to come to Canada this could alleviate the doctor shortage. The private care part would allow people who could afford private insurance to pay for the insurance which would fund the private doctors. In conjunction with this perhaps clinics with nurse practitioners working with doctors could provide improved services. Remove all the administrative and paperwork from doctors for one thing.

I know many people think any kind of private care is bad because they believe the ideology that Socialism or a government run health care system is better. Sadly it is not better. It has proven a failure for many years. It does not and can not fund the public system well enough to provide an acceptable level of care and provide everyone with their doctor.

Perhaps some kind of clinics with nurse practioners and doctors together could improve the system.

Doctors are also required because of the bureaucracy of the public system to complete all kinds of paperwork and administrative duties take up too much of their time. That needs to end. But the government seems unable to change that. The system seems to be set up to benefit bureaucrats and unions. That is one of the major problems of public systems. It is rigged to benefit certain groups at the expense of the general public.

Edited May 23 by blackbird

Barquentine · May 23

53 minutes ago, blackbird said:

One thing governments and political leaders should be doing is studying the health care systems in European countries.

https://www.bbc.com
Shortages of doctors mean the average GP in England has to care for 17% more patients than nine years ago, a BBC analysis shows.

https://www.euromotion-medical.com
The shortage of doctors in France is a well-documented reality, exacerbated by the aging medical population and a lack of new recruits.

https://rohitbatrateach.com
Germany is facing a significant healthcare staff shortage

https://www1.racgp.org.au
Australia is critically short of GPs – and the shortfall is growing, predicted to be 8,600 GPs by 2048.

54 minutes ago, blackbird said:

That is one of the major problems of public systems. It is rigged to benefit certain groups at the expense of the general public.

As opposed to private systems like the US where medical care depends on how much money you have?

blackbird · May 23

6 minutes ago, Barquentine said:

Shortages of doctors mean the average GP in England has to care for 17% more patients than nine years ago, a BBC analysis shows.

I didn't say we should adopt the system in the UK or France or Germany. I said the various systems in Europe should be studied. We should find out what makes the best systems.

Also there are conflicting articles on the systems in different countries. You read about some problems in Germany. I read that Germany has some very good things about its health care. You need to read more than one article on a country. There are many different opinions. Some groups have their own agenda.

10 minutes ago, Barquentine said:

As opposed to private systems like the US where medical care depends on how much money you have?

The U.S. does have some government assistance to their system.

I also never said we should follow the U.S. system. I specifically said to study the systems in various other countries such as Europe.

Your idea that only government can provide medical care has proven to be a failure. Our system is worse than the U.S. in some ways. Millions of Canadians can't even get a doctor. ERs close in some places. People are put on long waiting lists for special care often and thousands have died on waiting lists.

Many people in the U.S. actually get better health care than in Canada. In spite of that, I never said we should adopt the U.S. system.

However, I don't believe people who can afford to pay something should be denied the privilege of obtaining health care. Everyone rich or poor in Canada suffers in a failing health care system. People who can afford it should be able to contribute to the health care system through insurance or a reasonable small fee when they see a doctor. Socialized medical care does not provide enough money to provide good service for everyone.