Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Totally Unscientific Review of Canadian Health Care

It sucks. Or so said the six Canuks my husband sat down with yesterday. He does business in Windsor, and they talked him into having a beer before he headed home. With my dad so ill, talk of health care came up.

One man said he had to wait three years to get an appointment with a specialist for his asthma. Another said that the wait in ER routinely lasts 12 hours. Overall, they said that if they are really sick, they hop over the border and go to one of the hospitals in Michigan (actually, they mentioned Beaumont by name, which is where I donated my kidney.) The hospitals in Windsor are unable to deal with life-threatening illness, and the private ambulances and life-lifts routinely take them to the US.

So, if my dad had been in Canada when he got ill, he probably would not have made it.

That, my friends, is socialized medicine. Crappy care for all.