Healthcare Datapoint

[R. Richard]

You want the government to run healthcare? WHY???

Woman waits in California hospital for a bed to open up here

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - A Surrey woman's holiday in California has turned into a healthcare nightmare. The 68-year old needed emergency surgery after her appendix burst, but now she can't come home due to a lack of hospital beds.

Arlene Meeks has been in a California hospital since December 17th. Her family has been trying to get her transferred back to the Lower Mainland for 2 weeks now but they haven't had any luck.

Stephen Harris with the South Fraser Health Region says the issue is a shortage of ventilated intensive care unit beds, which are highly specialized. He says over the holidays, it's not surprising to see those beds filled up.

Harris says as soon as a bed becomes available, Meeks will be transferred to a local hospital. Arlene's daughter Kim says her mom is 'frustrated as hell', and she just wants to come home.

NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix says the issue is one that's continued to plague the Lower Mainland and he's blaming Liberal government cuts to acute care beds. "The number of acute care beds in British Columbia was reduced by 1,300 in the first mandate of the government, and some of the new facilities being opened won't be adding to that number."

Dix says the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health authorities issued reports last fall indicating they are 650 acute care beds short right now.

 

[Liar]

You want the government to run healthcare? WHY???

Nobody wants government to run healthcare. Some want taxes to finance healthcare, or parts of it.

But healthcare itself, like any other service, is best run by professionals.

This was an article about healthcare not proprerly financed. No organization can run outside of the frame of it's resources.

So what did it have to do with your question again?

 

[R. Richard]

Nobody wants government to run healthcare. Some want taxes to finance healthcare, or parts of it.

But healthcare itself, like any other service, is best run by professionals.

This was an article about healthcare not proprerly financed. No organization can run outside of the frame of it's resources.

So what did it have to do with your question again?

You cite professionals as the best choice to run health care. Professionals get paid. No money, no healthcare. Little money, little healthcare. The government of Canada gives the healthcare professionals little money and BIG problems. You can't separate funding from healthcare in an reasonable scenario.

NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix says the issue is one that's continued to plague the Lower Mainland and he's blaming Liberal government cuts to acute care beds. "The number of acute care beds in British Columbia was reduced by 1,300 in the first mandate of the government, and some of the new facilities being opened won't be adding to that number."

 

[Brains_N_Boobs]

First rule of thumb...never listen to (nor believe) what Canadian politicians are spewing unless you do some research on their real motives.

 

[Liar]

You cite professionals as the best choice to run health care. Professionals get paid. No money, no healthcare. Little money, little healthcare. The government of Canada gives the healthcare professionals little money and BIG problems. You can't separate funding from healthcare in an reasonable scenario.

NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix says the issue is one that's continued to plague the Lower Mainland and he's blaming Liberal government cuts to acute care beds. "The number of acute care beds in British Columbia was reduced by 1,300 in the first mandate of the government, and some of the new facilities being opened won't be adding to that number."

Um. Yes? We agree?

Like I said...

No organization can run outside of the frame of it's resources. The organization described in the article don't have enough resources.

So it needs more resources. Where do you propose it would get those resources? Manna from the sky? Pockets of the patients (that also may not have sufficient resources)? The article does not make a case against government healthcare. It makes a case against budget cuts in health care. Are you claiming that non-government health care can not be subjected to lacking finances?

 

[R. Richard]

No organization can run outside of the frame of it's resources. The organization described in the article don't have enough resources.

So it needs more resources. Where do you propose it would get those resources? Manna from the sky? Pockets of the patients (that also may not have sufficient resources)? The article does not make a case against government healthcare. It makes a case against budget cuts in health care. Are you claiming that non-government health care can not be subjected to lacking finances?

You will note that the hospital that is providing health care is in the USA, where healthcare is generally not under government financial control. The Canadian hospitals are under government financial control and they are currently unable to provide healthcare.

 

[Weird Harold]

You will note that the hospital that is providing health care is in the USA, where healthcare is generally not under government financial control. The Canadian hospitals are under government financial control and they are currently unable to provide healthcare.

I suspect that that Canadian Healthcare is paying the bills in California and are thus probably spending more than providing one additional bed of the type required for a full year would have cost in the frst place. (not that just one bed woul dhave made room fo the lady in question.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that she will have recovered beyond the need of entensive care before she gets to go back to Canada.

 

[Oblimo]

You want the government to run healthcare? WHY???

I'd rather ask the question: Why is there a presumption that corporate bureaucracy is somehow more efficient than the civil service model? If your answer is "profit," based on my experience, I'd wager that you haven't had much exposure to corporate bureaucracy.

 

[R. Richard]

I'd rather ask the question: Why is there a presumption that corporate bureaucracy is somehow more efficient than the civil service model? If your answer is "profit," based on my experience, I'd wager that you haven't had much exposure to corporate bureaucracy.

The answer is not profit, but survival. It is very difficult to fire a civil servant [this is not theory, I worked as a government contractor fior some ears.] It is not very difficult to fire a private industry worker. The private industry worker is probably no better, at base level than the civil servant. However, the private industry guy has to survive.

There are numbers of places in the USA whre they advertise the availablity of medical services to Canadians. Rich Canadians come across the USA border to get medical help for pay that they can get for free in Canada, free next year or the year after. If a USA hospital can buy an MRI machine and make a profit, the machine gets bought. On the Canadian side, a government guy has to be convinced that the MRI machine will improve health care to such a degree that it is worth spending taxpayer money. The USA guy listens to patient wishes. The Canadian guy listens to taxpayer gripes.

 

[R. Richard]

I suspect that that Canadian Healthcare is paying the bills in California and are thus probably spending more than providing one additional bed of the type required for a full year would have cost in the frst place. (not that just one bed woul dhave made room fo the lady in question.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that she will have recovered beyond the need of entensive care before she gets to go back to Canada.

It is probably true that Canadian healthcare is paying for the woman's care in California. However, [and without knowing at all] I suspect that the payment comes from a separate 'emergency' account.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

American government is involved in medical care up to its ears.