Public Healthcare Needs Some Healthcare
or How To Stop Making Someone Richer When You Get Sick
I was fine until the goddamn McDonald’s drive-thru lady handed me my order with a smile and said “Thank you very much! Have a great day, sir!”
I pulled away and crumpled.
Tears.
The whole bit.
Why’d she have to be so nice too??
I say “too” because I had just spent the morning at the ER with my Dad who had taken a fall and been taken to hospital by the paramedics.
As mentioned before, my Dad has Parkinson’s and Dementia.
It’s been a slow, rough and terrible road.
Watching the guy who had the magic ability to fix all the stupid mistakes I made as a teen and… well, up until I was about 40… deteriorate into a human-shaped puddle is no fun.
I do not enjoy going to hospitals.
I do not enjoy visiting the doctor.
I feel very strongly about minimizing my time doing either.
Hospitals and doctor’s offices and whatever scenes paramedics walk into are gross.
They are humanity at its base.
If you like blood, feces, snot and other bodily output… it’s your kind of place.
But here’s the thing…
Every single person we dealt with yesterday was nice.
So damn nice I’m welling up just thinking about it as I type this.
Are there terrible nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals?
Sure.
As Depeche Mode sang, people are people.
If there was a group of professionals who deserved to be perpetually pissed off and jaded it is healthcare professionals.
But they’re not.
For some reason they aren’t.
When you or your loved one is at their lowest, they are there.
Calm.
Prepared.
Ready to help.
Usually with a reassuring smile (evident even behind a mask).
It’s a fucking miracle and we should do everything we can to make sure they can keep doing that.
You may not need them today, but you will someday.
We’re lucky here in Canada.
I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have cost my parents to receive the kind of healthcare services they have in the past years, months, or even this past week.
We show a health card, receive treatment, and we’re on our way.
Doesn’t matter how much money you have.
Everyone, for the most part, is simply a patient.
Not once do we reach for our wallet.
There are no VISA or MasterCard stickers on the doors.
Which brings me to what kept going through my head yesterday while I sat waiting for my Dad to see the doctor on duty.
I looked around the room at the tired equipment and the worn signage.
I listened to the nurses darting from patient to patient when they weren’t busily typing out reports and updating charts.
Healthcare in Canada needs help.
Healthcare in Canada needs less bloated and expensive administration.
Canadians need family doctors.
Canadians need urgent care when they need urgent care.
Canadians need surgery when they need surgery.
There’s more but you get my point.
If we want it to, Canada’s public healthcare system can get better.
Hell, it can be the best.
If we want it to be.
Canadians just have to speak up.
Make good decisions at the ballot box.
Tell our leaders that we want Canada’s Public Healthcare to be better… now.
Those that wish to tear down our public healthcare system in favour of private enterprise may say they’re doing it in the name of efficiency and, to be truthful, they are correct for some treatments and procedures currently… but that’s only because we’ve left those treatments and procedures underfunded and ignored for too long.
However, with even the most superficial of reviews it becomes clear that those interested in privatizing more and more of Canada’s public healthcare know that most of us will pay whatever we have to when we have to.
They want money.
They want lots of money.
The easiest sale in the world is the promise of your health or your loved one’s.
Put a price tag on that and I promise you won’t be able to afford it one day.
Let’s keep Canadians in society and contributing to the economy.
Let’s not make a handful of very rich people even richer.
Let’s focus on making public healthcare in Canada not just better, but the best.
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Well said.
Just had hip replacement surgery It was a long painful wait but it’s done and now I just need to put in the effort to recovery. I am old enough to remember the bad old days when medical bills and hospital charges would swamp young families. The punch to privatize medicine and create a two tier system benefits no one but the big providers and undermines the services to the rest of the population.