Xanthippa's Chamberpot

A word to those who say that Canadian health care is ‘free’:  according to the latest figures, my family (of 4) pays about a thousand dollars per month in health taxes alone.

In addition, the Canadian health care system is less like ‘Toyota Corolla’ amd more like a ‘1980 Honda Civic’…

For example of how health care is being delivered in our hospitals, I can relay what I saw when, a little over a month ago, my mother fell down and injured herself.

She suffered a complex fracture with a shoulder dislocation.  And, true, she did get an excellent surgery to correct that.

But…

She had to sit in a hospital bed, with her arm untreated, for 5 days before there was time in an operating room to schedule her surgery – and she was told she was lucky it went that quickly!

While visiting her afterwards, I got chatting with another lady in her room (4 patients to the room).  This elderly woman got a severe bladder infection, fainted and got a complex fracture of her leg as a result.  It happens…

She could not move on her own, due to the leg.  When she needed to go to the washroom (remember, she had a bladder infection), she had to call the nurse because she could not get out of bed.

During one of my visits, she had called the nurse exactly for this reason several times over the course of an hour – with absolutely NO RESPONSE from anyone.  Finally, I went in search of someone to help her.  I found the nurse, sitting at his station, reading a book.  Very reluctantly, he got up (I was most insistent) and said he’d ‘get someone’…and left.

Another hour passed, nobody came.

The poor lady was still sitting in the hospital bed, crying, because she had soiled herself,without anyone having helped her, when I was leaving half an hour later.

And THAT is the reality of the Canadian medical system!