My Rant against our Prov. Gov.

I found out this past Fri. that my knee replacement surgery won't take place till at least this coming Sept. due to lack of funding. I asked why not earlier and was told that the surgeon is only scheduled to do [2 ] knee surgeries in Aug. and the hospital has not given out the surgery schedule for Sept. as of this past Fri.
I checked this out with a friend of ours who is an O.R. nurse , and she said it has all to do with Gov. funding, they allow only so many elective surgeries to be done and allow for emergencies.
I guess they do not worry about the quality of life of us taxpayers, as long as they [the politicians, ] make a good living , we have to put our lives and life styles on hold.:mad:

Our " f56783g Gov. " , can give away 80 million dollars to the teachers unions but will only give our hospitals a bare minimum to keep us healthy and enable us to keep up our quality of life , this is absolutely unacceptable , but what can we do ? :sad:

Inevitably this country, province will turn into a pay as you play society. If you've got the money you can play, if you haven't we can all look forward to what you are going through right now. But hey, if we all switched over to heating with electricity there'll be more money on the coffers... I feel your pain...

It's the same with another department I know of. Before the end of the fiscal year, they stop doing surgeries because there is no more funding.
On the brighter side, it eases up the work load on the under staffed over worked nurses.

What can you do? - come down here and you can have it done in a couple weeks - where are all those guys who keep telling me how good your health system is - huh

What would be the cost of the bill Joepa?

Teachers will campaign for and finance her reelection. Where do you think she will invest her money? Traditionally nurses and Doctors have not been politically militant.

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Originally Posted by puc911

What would be the cost of the bill Joepa?

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For a total knee replacement with no insurance, somewhere from 16K to 60K. The wide variation depends mainly on hospital costs.

My Canadian doctor(a specialist) in the US told me he makes the same for 1 surgery or 100. I guess he is on a contract with the US hospital.

Jaycee I feel for you. No need for someone in medical need to be delayed due to government's mismanagement.

I wonder if refugees go to the front of the line?

Problem is, there are way too many Gs, who feel Police/Teachers should take every raise they can get. In their minds, money grows on trees. And the problem there is, understanding that what X is worth, is different from what we can afford are two entirely different things. Nor does he understand that ultimately, its because of that thinking, that Nurses are being let go, by the thousands now.
I mean I'm sure a $10,000 trip to Hiawai is worth it, doesn't mean we can afford it. Im surprised he, like soooooooo many other people who are left of centre isn't up to his eyeballs in debt.

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[COLOR=#333333]I checked this out with a friend of ours who is an O.R. nurse , and she said it has all to do with Gov. funding, they allow only so many elective surgeries to be done and allow for emergencies.

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A friend of mine just had knee surgery done. He was patient 76 for the year. That surgeon is only allowed to do 80/year.

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Originally Posted by jaycee

I found out this past Fri. that my knee replacement surgery won't take place till at least this coming Sept. due to lack of funding. I asked why not earlier and was told that the surgeon is only scheduled to do [2 ] knee surgeries in Aug. and the hospital has not given out the surgery schedule for Sept. as of this past Fri.
I checked this out with a friend of ours who is an O.R. nurse , and she said it has all to do with Gov. funding, they allow only so many elective surgeries to be done and allow for emergencies.
I guess they do not worry about the quality of life of us taxpayers, as long as they [the politicians, ] make a good living , we have to put our lives and life styles on hold.:mad:

Our " f56783g Gov. " , can give away 80 million dollars to the teachers unions but will only give our hospitals a bare minimum to keep us healthy and enable us to keep up our quality of life , this is absolutely unacceptable , but what can we do ? :sad:

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I hear you. I'm waiting on a new knee too ; last March when I had cataract surgery I just got in under the wire as funding for cataract surgery was used up for that time period.

How can a knee surgery be considered as "elective" surgery?

AS long as you are not crawling you can wait. Take a pill for the pain. :rolleyes:

God help us.

The way it was explained to me Terry, and why people wait so long. As Jaycee said for many of these procedures theres a cap on how many any specific surgeon can do in a year. Lets say, your knee/hip ( Im not sure what is or isn't capped) goes. You might hit the jackpot and go to a surgeon who hasn't capped out ( Sharons cataract) and get it done in less than 18-12 months. Realistically your put on a list that might look like

2016: no vacancy
2017: no vacancy
2018: Your procedure #


Blows my mind people don't get it. The whys and hows this province has gone down the toilet. Why various services have gone down the toilet, why nurses are being let go by the hundreds/thousands (well outside large population centres anyways).Why funding for IBI is gone, why our taxes our soaring, why peons without Pensions are in a world of hurt and can't find two nickels for their own RSPs, why seniors on fixed incomes are getting crushed by soaring hydro, taxes, especially those outside the golden toronto, red GTA.
And on
And on
And on

And the crapper is, even when theres a change at QP, fixing it is going to be painful to.

But don't gripe about it, don't post about it.
Well Im betting as with 3rd party advertising, Unions, conflict of interest, corruption and the chief elections office growing very concerned.

A city dweller, who doesn't see these things (even though many in cities are likewise capped out), who thinks every Teacher and every Police officer should take every raise they can get, despite being far better off than the vast majority of tax payers, and Unions are benevolent, pure without greed, sin or self interest.

Has again, learned something new

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Originally Posted by puc911

What would be the cost of the bill Joepa?

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Depends on the insurance coverage. But do some research into our health care system and how bad it is, before looking down your nose at the US. Three real life examples.

1) Guy I know was diagnosed with a form of brain cancer. He flew to some place in or around San Fran. He was done, home within a couple weeks.
2) Guy I worked with. Went to Mount Sanai here. Diagnosed as terminal, given 2-3years. After about 6-8 months he went to the Mayo Clinic. After a few weeks he got the good news that he had been misdiagnosed. The reason?

Old faulty equipment. The hospital here tried to settle out of court. Offered him large sums of money. He settled for 0.01 and told the hospital to buy new equipment so no one else would go through what he went through.

3) Poster here on OOD ( I won't mention his user name, he can chime in if he wants) went about a year, waiting for his cancer treatment.

And myself.
I went almost 14months, read that again 14 months with daily, major and I do mean major hemorrhaging (Nose bleeds but don't mistake them as little nose bleeds that could be easily stopped...Im talking huge blood loss, streams of blood, not drips, that could go 20 minutes before stopping)....I was getting my nose cauterized about every 3 weeks while they tried to figure it out. One month after the 3rd biopsy I got the dreaded come in and sit down call, " We don't know how we missed it the first two times"

4 months later the surgery to remove the tumor. Four months of not knowing the if the ticking time bomb in my head would go off permanently, four months of wondering if I'd see my kids at X-Mas, while waiting...........

/looks at guy #1

Our healthcare is a joke, a sad one. Not saying its not good or without it's good aspect. The sad joke is, the majority think its all that and look down our noses at the US.

Well they do, until they run into the growing and many and wide cracks

Almost forgot. My form of cancer, which statistically is kind of scary? Well after the surgery when they told me it went well and they were sure they got it all...well it has upto an 80% recurrence rate. While it's been 8 years now and I'm told that statistically if hasn't come back, at this point it won't. But guess what I'll be doing if the major nose bleeds as I call them start again. I'll be going to the US right away. And I don't care how much it cost me.............while still paying through the nose here (pardon the pun).

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Originally Posted by JoePa

What can you do? - come down here and you can have it done in a couple weeks - where are all those guys who keep telling me how good your health system is - huh

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JoePa, It is about time for you to take off your " Rose Coloured Glasses " and go see an optometrist!, things aren't that good and rosy down south either.
I spoke with a friend of mine whose brother lives in Pennsylvania , Lancaster County , and he had to wait just short of 8 months for his knee replacement surgery and it cost him a pile of money , which we do not have to pay out for the same procedure.
Also despite the fact that many down their are armed and do carry , there are by far more innocent people killed every day than up here in our Canada, again JoePa, throw away those rose coloured glasses that you are always looking through.

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Originally Posted by Sharon

AS long as you are not crawling you can wait. Take a pill for the pain. :rolleyes:

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There are not many pills that can take away the pain from bone rubbing on bone , [no cartilage ] in my knee joint, and I do not like what happens when I take "oxycodone/oxycocet".,.
I know you were being sarcastic.
I am putting most of the blame of this problem on to my G.P., as for the last five years and four x rays , he has always been telling me that I have an "arthritis problem . it wasn't until around last Christmas when I went to see him again and said that there must be more to it than arthritis. Again after more x rays this time they were sent to a "sports medicine doctor " who immediately after seing the x rays said he could do nothing for me as I needed knee replacement surgery and HE is the one that made my contacts with the Orthopedic Surgeon .
Needless to say , this week I am going to have "words " with my G.P., as I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past couple of months , and put a lot of blame on him as he is the one that should have been able to read the x rays properly and initiated corrective solutions to my problem much sooner , at least by two maybe three years .

Well let me just say this - a buddy of mine had both knees replaced at the same time - from the time he decided to have it done and the time it was done was approximately 3 weeks - his cost was zero - this guy in Lancaster county must have had some other issues for him to wait that long - my knees are good but if I ever had to have them replaced it would cost me nothing - 85% of the cost would be covered by Medicare and the remaining 15% would be covered by a supplemental insurance plan I have that is covered by my former employer - and I'll bet that it wouldn't take me more than a couple weeks to schedule such a procedure - hospitals advertise how good their staff is in doing knee and hip replacements and attempt to get more customers - there isn't a waiting list - when the government gets involved things always go down the tubes - you should know that by now

Oh - one other thing - if I have anything wrong other than a cold or some minor thing I would go directly to a specialist - a GP isn't trained to deal with more complicated issues -

You can't go to a specialist here without a GP referral. The problem in Canada isn't what Doctors bill or what we pay nurses and techs. It's the the enormous multiple levels of highly paid and gold plated pension paper pushers and admin staff. I bet if you broke down the percentage of money paid to staff who actually administer care to a patient you would be shocked. In this era of information technology a huge portion of the admin staff are now redundant.

I have had zero wait times for anything while in Canada however I only have dealt with specialists. Never had a family doctor in Canada.

Just recently(about 3 months ago) I was at a clinic and the on duty doc asked me if she could offer her services as my family doctor.

I didn't realize the signifigance of that conversation until my wife explained how difficult it is to obtain a doctor in Canada.

So in summary, I have no complaints about service but I am against gov. health care anywhere/everywhere because of the governmental control and lack of citizen control it causes even on non medical related subjects and related businesses.

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Originally Posted by JoePa

Well let me just say this - a buddy of mine had both knees replaced at the same time - from the time he decided to have it done and the time it was done was approximately 3 weeks - his cost was zero - this guy in Lancaster county must have had some other issues for him to wait that long - my knees are good but if I ever had to have them replaced it would cost me nothing - 85% of the cost would be covered by Medicare and the remaining 15% would be covered by a supplemental insurance plan I have that is covered by my former employer - and I'll bet that it wouldn't take me more than a couple weeks to schedule such a procedure - hospitals advertise how good their staff is in doing knee and hip replacements and attempt to get more customers - there isn't a waiting list - when the government gets involved things always go down the tubes - you should know that by now

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Well lucky him, others are not that fortunate!

I talked to a guy in Florida who was buying his meds in Canada because they were so much cheaper here. Then he had the nerve to whine about how long it sometimes took the company to process his order and how slow the customs cleared his shipment. He just couldn't believe it was the U.S. customs that were the hold-up but it was much easier to blame everything on the Canadian system.
On the other note, I can't believe he actually had both knees done at the same time. I understood that only one knee was to be done at a time.

800,000 Ontarians (that's what's reported) without GPs R. Can tell you within that group I belong to which is 800-900 people strong in Durham region there are many without. And anytime a GP "advertises" they are accepting new patients, word spreads fast.

As I said, until you run into one of the problems, and/or widening cracks. People don't really realize how bad it's become. It's like those things you hear about, but it doesn't register until/unless it's happening to "you" or a loved one.

there are reasons private healthcare clinics are on the rise.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=private...F87D&FORM=QBLH

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Originally Posted by jaycee

There are not many pills that can take away the pain from bone rubbing on bone , [no cartilage ] in my knee joint, and I do not like what happens when I take "oxycodone/oxycocet".,.
I know you were being sarcastic.
I am putting most of the blame of this problem on to my G.P., as for the last five years and four x rays , he has always been telling me that I have an "arthritis problem . it wasn't until around last Christmas when I went to see him again and said that there must be more to it than arthritis. Again after more x rays this time they were sent to a "sports medicine doctor " who immediately after seing the x rays said he could do nothing for me as I needed knee replacement surgery and HE is the one that made my contacts with the Orthopedic Surgeon .
Needless to say , this week I am going to have "words " with my G.P., as I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past couple of months , and put a lot of blame on him as he is the one that should have been able to read the x rays properly and initiated corrective solutions to my problem much sooner , at least by two maybe three years .

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You're right. I'm living on Tylenal 650s but can't be good for your kidneys or liver. Sleeping is the worst time isn't it.

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Originally Posted by JBen

800,000 Ontarians (that's what's reported) without GPs R. Can tell you within that group I belong to which is 800-900 people strong in Durham region there are many without. And anytime a GP "advertises" they are accepting new patients, word spreads fast.

As I said, until you run into one of the problems, and/or widening cracks. People don't really realize how bad it's become. It's like those things you hear about, but it doesn't register until/unless it's happening to "you" or a loved one.

there are reasons private healthcare clinics are on the rise.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=private...F87D&FORM=QBLH

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I absolutely believe you, I was fortunate she asked. I also have other Canadian friends that have had major issues getting work done especially on hips.

Sadly those incidents of delay and poor healthcare availability were ignored by the "if it's free we want it" US citizens, thus odumbocare.

Oddly enough ALL the doctors but three that were on the team that put be back together Stateside were Canadian. One was Bolivian, one American 6 from Ontario and one from Winnipeg. Only the one from Winnipeg was returning to Canada.

And by the same token, there are many here who think what we have is fantastic and free. Not realizing roughly 50% of their tax dollars goes to health care. There also many who oppose "two tier"
/dons the hat of those who say if you don't like what you do, or how much your paid, get a higher paying job.

i think In Ontario healthcare is around 50% of the budget. So if you earn 100k, and thus pay about 50k in taxes (all in). Your healthcare which can be very shoddy cost you about 25k/year

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Originally Posted by Sharon

You're right. I'm living on Tylenal 650s but can't be good for your kidneys or liver. Sleeping is the worst time isn't it.

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Ask your doctor if pot is right for you.
My cancer came back this winter. Treatments went good, doctors where great and all and all on the mend. However the pain meds kept messing me up bad, I have a legal pot script and they gave me edibles ( candies and gummy bears ) and a e cigarette with extract oil and il never touch a pain pill again.

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Originally Posted by cantcatchacold

Ask your doctor if pot is right for you.
My cancer came back this winter. Treatments went good, doctors where great and all and all on the mend. However the pain meds kept messing me up bad, I have a legal pot script and they gave me edibles ( candies and gummy bears ) and a e cigarette with extract oil and il never touch a pain pill again.

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I have a couple of friends that swear by nabilone(synthetic canabis) for cancer treatment pain and a recuperative sleep.

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Originally Posted by skypilot

I have a couple of friends that swear by nabilone(synthetic canabis) for cancer treatment pain and a recuperative sleep.

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I was originally prescribed cesamet but had a allergic reaction.

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Originally Posted by cantcatchacold

I was originally prescribed cesamet but had a allergic reaction.

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i know little about nabilone other than a couple of friends input. However the drug also claims/ advertises many, and severe side effects from what I read.

Sawbill - he did have both done at the same time - I have heard of others doing the same thing - I guess they figured to go through with it once and get it over with - I know he went to physical therapy for some time after that - all at no zero again - physical therapy is easier if you only do one knee at a time but then your looking at doing it all over again -

When I went for my new hip most of the group was having both knees done. I had waited two years from the initial decision that it was the only option. At the end of the wait I was having trouble with PAD because I had only been walking with crutches, walker, etc.
My cancer however seems to get priority here in Bancroft, Belleville or Kingston. Routine tests last week brought questionable results so tomorrow we drive to Kingston for more. All the travelling would be a tax deduction IF my income was four times what it is....Since my income is "low", it is up to me to cover the costs...

I hope you get good news.