By Klaus Rohrich
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Nothing tastes quite so sweet as forbidden fruit. I had occasion during the past week to purchase "black market" healthcare in Buffalo, as well as some of the "illegal" two-tiered healthcare available right here in Ontario.
I decided to consult a physician in Buffalo after learning that the earliest a specialist in Ontario could see me was ten weeks. While my condition was not life threatening, it was of a serious nature, which rendered me unable to work and ten weeks without working would leave me in desperate straights. The specialist in Buffalo was able to see me on five days' notice, which I found very enlightening. I arrived at the specialist's office 45 minutes early, which I was used to doing with Canadian specialists, as having an appointment at a set time was meaningless. A 2:30 appointment often meant a two-hour wait in a small and crowded waiting room to be seen for five or ten minutes with the assurance that I would have some testing arranged and would be called with dates.
The Buffalo doctor's waiting room was beautiful. It was spacious and well appointed with deep, plush, comfortable leather seating and a library with beautiful books about art, history and philosophy. No copies of 10-month old Time Magazine or National Geographic. I pointed out that I was early and was assured by the doctor's receptionist that this wasn't a problem and we would actually see me prior to the appointed time. I sat back in one of the seats and pulled down a copy of Will and Ariel Durant's The Age of Reason Begins, expecting to wait an hour or two. To my surprise the delay was less than 10 minutes, so I didn't get a lot of reading in.
The Doctor, after learning I was a Canadian, blithely informed me that he had studied his specialty in Canada and pointed out his FRCPS (P) designation embroidered on his white coat. He examined me very thoroughly and offered an opinion as to what he thought the diagnosis was, subject to further tests that he would arrange for me to have. I went back to his receptionist who booked me for an MRI and a series of other tests, which were to take place two week hence. The reason the wait was for two week was that I was going on vacation for one of those weeks and I requested to have all the tests on the same day to keep me from having to drive down twice.
I left this doctor's office with a good understanding of what might be the cause of my distress and the encouragement to find out more about the condition by reading about it on the Internet. Total cost: $156.00 US
My second encounter with private healthcare in Canada was when I discovered I needed a surgical procedure the government healthcare monopoly did not consider to be essential. I was obligated to pay for it myself and let me point out, I did not mind doing so. The procedure was to be performed by a well-known plastic surgeon in Toronto and the wait time was-you guesses it- two months. Only difference was the doctor insisted on being paid one month in advance and they called me for payment exactly thirty days prior to commencement of the procedure.
I arrived, again bout 45 minutes early at the Toronto doctor's office and found myself to be the only person in the waiting room. Again the room was pleasantly furnished with a gorgeous Persian carpet dominating the area around which soft and comfortable seating was arranged. The nurse came out to prep me for the procedure and I was in and out of that office prior to the time for which my appointment was actually scheduled. Total cost $265.00 CAD (including GST)
Now compare this with the government run healthcare monopoly, where small, dreary, overcrowded doctors' waiting rooms appear to be the norm; where the doctors' assistants more often than not are rude and sullen; where the term "caring" is largely meaningless and where the doctor is often too busy to conduct a thorough medical investigation.
Critics of the system decry the fact that at all levels healthcare professionals are clamoring for more money. Yet few realize that the level of spending on healthcare in Canada has increased ballistically and continues to do so. In Ontario alone within four years healthcare is expected to represent 50% of all provincial expenditures and will reach 100% of all provincial expenditures if the current trend continues. Canada's annual healthcare expenditure of close to $150 billion is at an all time high of 10.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), yet the level and quality of services continues to steadily decline.
Free healthcare is not the solution to our problem. It is the root of the problem. Only the most irrationally entitled (or those who are severely brain damaged) members of our society can fail to understand the eventual destiny of our healthcare system. I resent the government's failure to provide viable options to a crisis that shows no sign of abatement because of ideological commitments to a left-wing electorate.
It appears that each new government defers what it knows it must do about healthcare to a future, unnamed government and with each new government the problem will be harder to fix. I, for one, will take responsibility for my own healthcare, as I do not trust the government monopoly to act in my best interest.
So, Dalton, take your government healthcare and put it where the sun doesn't shine.
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