Our Medical System in Crisis

I have several articles in the past few weeks that show just how bad our medical system has become. I read where a homeless man in Edmonton died after being in emergency for 34 hours, he had not been through triage or even checked on as he had been dead for hours when he was discovered in his wheel chair in the waiting room. He died of a bladder infection/ blocked cathetar which could have been cured with antibiotics and a new cathetar. Then in the Toronto Sun a young woman of 27, with a shattered hip from an automobile accident on September 7 who has been awaiting surgery since that day to fix her hip. The reason her surgery has been delayed is that no trauma beds were available anywhere, but since the article was printed in the sun Sunnybrook Hospital who had denied her a bed up until now finally found one, how ironic, just when the story makes the papers, however a wait time of this long for someone lying flat on a back board in a hospital bed is unacceptable. If the surgery was done promptly she would have been sent home before now and that would have freed up a bed for someone else. The article claims that her hospital stay would be a short one after surgery. With our population getting older this will affect everyone sooner or later, could you imagine the pain of watching your loved one wait 18 days in intense pain for a necessary surgery with no end in sight, this girls mother did just that before contacting the media. This retired nurse knew more about the system then most of us do and yet was unable to help her daughter and called the Toronto Sun as a last resort. How sad the system has become.

Doesn't really matter if it was in Edmonton or Winnipeg. (It was in Winnipeg.) It could happen here!

Would someone cleaning the floor not notice that he had been there too long? What kind of indifference is going on in our world? If he was in such pain...he probably passed out and didn't even hear his name called...if it even WAS called!

I can see this happening.... hopefully it doesn't happen too often. But it's a sad state of affairs.

I notice that Brantford General now has volunteers who ask you what you need when you enter. And they direct you to the proper location. That is helpful, I think. But you are still there a very long time...at ANY of the emergency depts. It's just a fact of life now.

Our medical system has been on the down swing for years it is just getting worse as time goes on!
I was very ill 2 years ago, I couldnt breathe I went to the hosp and sat there for 5 hours and finally left I just couldnt wait any longer. The next night I went to the walk in and my dr was working and give me proper crap for not going to the hosp. I told her about the day before and she shook her head! I had puemonia (sp) I should have been hospitalized but am a single mom and someone needed to care for my son! Its a sad day when people die waiting to see a dr.

We only see a trickle of it here in "small town Ontario" and that's bad enough. Travel to the more urban areas and you will see exactly what beatrice is talking about. I hear testimonies from our clients on an ongoing basis. It's a crisis NOW!

The crisis in the urban areas is exactly as horrible as painted. I know from personal experience (as in ME) that wait times are ridiculuous. I had broken my ankle in three different places, smashed so many bones that during surgery 12 hours later, they were just suctioned out. Arrived at 9:30 and moved around in the emergency area. Excruitating pain. One volunteer came by with a box of kleenex with a comment "You are going to need these". EVERY time a nurse looked at me or they moved me around, still in the emergency area, they all had a clipboard and asked me the same information for the same form over and over. Finally, at round four, my hubby said to look at the others. They were the same. The best medication I rec'd as Extra Strenght Tylenol every four hours. I think they kept moving me because they couldn't stand my moaning, groaning and crying. Finally at 5 that night I was moved to a semi private room and then surgery at 9:30. RARELY did anyone bother with me unless it was to fill out a form. No ice chips, no drinks, no food and a scolding from the floor nurse for not bringing in my own facecloth etc. (Gee, I really knew I was going to break my ankle that day!)
After surgery was just as bad. The nurses snapped at me or ignored me. When I said my body felt really weird, the nurse told me to get a grip, I just got out of surgery a couple of hours ago. I called her back in 20 min....who knows how long it took for her to arrive....my body was swelling and I had huge blotches all over my face and back. An allergic reaction. Then I was tersely asked why I didn't report the allergy. (I didn't KNOW!!) Two days later I told the nursing staff that I wanted to see my surgeon TODAY and with or without his permission, I was leaving.
Thank goodness I at least could speak and was semi aware of what was going on with my care. Anyone less than alert is lost, lost, lost.
So when I read these horror stories, I tend to believe them.
And I could tell you why we are in this sorry state, but perhaps that's best left for the Political forum.

I absolutely believe your horror story SZQ. I have heard this kind of story over and over. Our hospitals have turned into large factory assembly lines and it's a matter of "taking a number". Hospitals are run as a business model first then a medical model. Nursing models have been left out of the loop in the formation of our medical system. Nurses had to fight to have representation on the formation of the new Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) because they were not "invited" to the table. I guess they thought that their voice was not needed.

Unfortunately, the nurses get most of the blame because patients 'see' them the most, even if only a physical presence as to an involved presence. I have nursing friends and they all say the same...patients tend to be overlooked because the book work and form work are impossible to keep up with. Too few nurses. STILL!

It's the same with teaching. In 26 years, NO ONE ever asked for input from the classroom level in terms of successes or failures. Never once did I fill out a survey or info sheet to state issues or concerns re. curriculum or anything else! That's Ontario for you!

On the front lines you are just the workers...the pencil in the big hand of the government ministries. You trace the line that comes from above according to their direction. No input and no opportunity for suggestions or criticisms. Or feedback.

They do their own "studies" with the "experts" and get their recommendations from those "in the know"....who have not been in the classroom for a long time..or perhaps have NEVER been in a classroom but have the proper certification and letters after their names. It's the way it is in Ontario! Health and education are the same. People are slipping into cracks and holes along the way and no one even notices!

I think what bothers me the most is that we just accept it as the way it has to be. We get up in arms when we hear these horror stories but soon go back to our everyday lives and hope that we never need the services of a hospital. I can not understand how wait times to see specialists can be months, years or you are placed on a waiting list and you may get an appointment in the years to come. A co- worker needed back/neck surgery to fix a pinched nerve or something like that. It was to be a day surgery with a short recovery time. This poor girl worked each day..eating pain pills and feeling horrible while awaiting her surgery, almost a year later she had the surgery, it was successful but she has to now be withdrawn from narcotic pain meds as she was on them so long.What would have happened if she had become addicted to them during this time and it ruined her life. If she had had the surgery promptly she wouldn't have had to take these meds.I wonder how many other people are in the same boat?

And now a Doctor is taking himself out of the medical field to run as a local Politician.

Oh and he wants everyone to know he is one.

I do not understand the stories that I have heard, like this it seems very strange. I understand that sometimes someone slips through the system.

The way you are talking it seems to be the norm.

I have been to emergency a few times and have had the utmost of care given.

What I have seen and Disturbs me are the people that go to emerg for a cold, little cut, scratch etc. Waste of your's and my tax dollars.


Later AJ

I must add though....with everything being said, I strongly advise everyone to watch the movie "Sicko" by Michael Moore. I never thought I would promote a Michael Moore production, but after watching that I realized that things could be FAR WORSE here. The US has a horrible system.

AJ wrote:

And now a Doctor is taking himself out of the medical field to run as a local Politician.

Oh and he wants everyone to know he is one.

Maybe he sucked as a doctor but has a huge ego (hmmm .... reminds me of a local doctor).

Is he a medial doctor or does he have a doctorate in something else ... like music? Actually, never mind - I don't really care.

Groovin wrote:

AJ wrote:

And now a Doctor is taking himself out of the medical field to run as a local Politician.

Oh and he wants everyone to know he is one.

Maybe he sucked as a doctor but has a huge ego (hmmm .... reminds me of a local doctor).

.

Which one????

You pretty much HAVE to have a big ego and self-assurance as a doctor. Afterall, you are making decisions that involve life and death. Not many others have that kind of responsibility.

Some personalities would not be suitable. You cannot be wishy-washy or weak or fearful and you have to be able to make a decision and stick with it. That is not always good for the patient...esp if you don't fit the norm for whatever reason.

However, every drug or procedure STATES a failure rate in the documentation. So if you look up the drug you are taking and it says FATAL in 1% of all cases...or whatever...that means 1 out of 100 people! Even .01% means that someone somewhere expired!

And if that 1 person is YOU or your loved one, then it IS significant. But the failure rate is built in to the statistics. And sometimes the failure rate, no matter how small, happens to hit your household. And doctors must accept even that. And sometimes, it even hits their own households and families.

Groovin wrote:

Is he a medial doctor or does he have a doctorate in something else ...

No Eric Hoskins is Not a medial doctor but he is a Medical Doctor.

I know this is probably a little off topic but why can't anyone change their career? If I decide to become a lawyer and after a few weeks/years decide I want become a monk who is anyone to say I can't. Just because I have gone to school for one job/career and decide I'd like to try something else why can't I. What was posted a few treads up was that a Doctor was leaving his profession to run for office. Ok, is this not a free country? Can't we do what we choose in our lives? Just asking.

pattip wrote:

I know this is probably a little off topic but why can't anyone change their career? If I decide to become a lawyer and after a few weeks/years decide I want become a monk who is anyone to say I can't. Just because I have gone to school for one job/career and decide I'd like to try something else why can't I. What was posted a few treads up was that a Doctor was leaving his profession to run for office. Ok, is this not a free country? Can't we do what we choose in our lives? Just asking.

Ok I know this is somewhat off topic.

Absolutely a free country; or maybe a Autocratic as I see it. ( truly what we have, at times)

Point that was made if you change professions you change titles. Hence the Dr would be meaningless.

My feeling it is arrogant to do it. Do you see the Lawyers and other Dr. putting status on their signs? Never seen one. Now that brings up another totally different topic.

So back to the basis of this thread, why if he is so proud of being a Dr would you stop what everyone here is saying we need more of?

Back under my rock.

Later AJ

AJ wrote:

So back to the basis of this thread, why if he is so proud of being a Dr would you stop what everyone here is saying we need more of?

AJ you seem to have the idea that a doctor is only being a doctor if s/he is sitting in a medical office treating patients. There are many doctors in this country who go to work every day as doctors but who never see patients. I consider a doctor sitting in the House of Commons fighting for improvements in our health care system to be doctoring just as much as the guy in his office swinning a stethoscope.

Since our health care system is managed on a provincial level I am not sure how a doctor in parliament who belongs to the official opposition (assuming he would actually win in this area) can make any difference to our emergency waiting times.

rudievalentine wrote:

Since our health care system is managed on a provincial level I am not sure how a doctor in parliament who belongs to the official opposition (assuming he would actually win in this area) can make any difference to our emergency waiting times.

Thank you at least some people understand our system.

Later AJ

I noticed the ad in the paper talking about the need for changes in the health care system and more doctors etc. left the DR. off his name. Just plain old Eric. Intentional?

Interesting to say the least.