We Canadians are proud of our health care system; at least when it’s being compared to other health care systems in other countries such as United States. Why is that? Because health care system here in Canada is cheap. We can go see a doctor anytime we want, all we have to do is give the secretary our health card, and they swipe it and boom! We are covered. It doesn’t really matter if we are going for a regular check up, a surgery or blood test, pretty much everything is covered thanks to our magical card OHIP. Technically we pay for every visit to the doctor but it’s indirect. The money comes from the taxes government collects from people. But still this is a great system and so far it seems like a lovely idea to everybody. One question may come in to our mind: what about the services that we receive from the health care system? How’s the quality? Despite what Canadian government and Ontario Ministry of Health say about how great our health care system is, I think it sucks, period.
I can’t argue with the fact that the idea of having a health card such as OHIP for almost everybody in Canada is pretty good and it’s been working so far; however, it seems like the quality of services that we receive is on a downhill regardless of the fact that we are actually paying higher taxes. Much much higher! A very good example is my visits to my family doctor of over 7 years. During the past couple of years every time i go see my family doctor, despite the fact that I actually have an appointment, I am forced to wait in the waiting room for at least 1 hour before she can see me. And when finally it’s my turn she only spends 5-10 minutes with me and she is always in such a hurry that I barely have time to discuss my medical concerns with her. The whole concept of family doctors and them knowing your medical history and spending sufficient time with you is getting meaningless in Ontario. Every time after my visit I am completely unsatisfied. I have tried to change my family doctor but apparently I am not allowed since I already have one!
Another example which is seemingly many people’s concern as well is the emergency departments of hospitals. When people are admitted to emergency rooms they need to be taken care of immediately. You don not necessarily need to have a heart attack or be in a coma to be taken care of right away. However, in Ontario’s hospitals emergencies mean something else. You may be forced to refer to the emergency department but there’s a good chance that you have to wait for a couple of hours until a nurse or a doctor comes and takes you. What is their excuse? “We don’t have enough beds or we don’t have enough doctors or staffs to take care of you!” You might as well take your chance and go home and hope you get better somehow instead of waiting for hours in a room where you never know when they will come and get you.
Everybody including health care professionals is complaining about not having sufficient number of staffs in our health care systems to answer people’s needs. But the government seems to be completely unresponsive to these complains. Just a few weeks ago, a group of Ontario’s nurses rallied outside the Ontario Legislature since the Ministry of Health declared in 2010 many nurses from Ontario’s hospitals will be losing their jobs because of the cut in the budgets. This is no surprise that during the years of depression many countries such as Canada are suffering from low budgets and there will be some cuts no matter what. However, in Canada’s situation where the health care system is already suffering, cutting the budget in this area is not a good idea. By cutting the budget for Canada’s health care system we are putting people’s lives in a greater risk. Many patients are already suffering of not getting sufficient health care that they need. Having even lesser number of nurses in hospitals, make the situation even worse. Even though Canada’s Health Minister David Caplan has denied that in 2010 many Ontario nurses will lose their job due to the cuts in the budgets, there’s a good possibility that they will. Why do we want to stop investing on an area such as health care, where it’s already short in health care professional and is in a great need of help? If we are paying more taxes and the number of referees to the hospitals is on a rise, why are we bringing down the quality of the health care system? What is the point of having a health care where it has a good medical coverage but when it comes to the actual action it’s just not as good as it should be? In my opinion our health care system can not suffer more and it’s actually in a great need of improvement.
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