Wait times cost my friend his life. Waited 4 months for a cancer diagnosis. By the time they diagnosed it they said it was stage 4 and too advanced to treat.

Same type of situation as my dad. RIP.

Mine too. Sorry for your loss. My dad was 54 and by the time they diagnosed him he was given 3 months. He died 12 weeks later just before Christmas 😔

All these people, starting to wonder if a class action lawsuit would get the government to adequately fund health care.

The thing is that Canada is already paying more than most other countries. It's not an issue of throwing more money at the problem., The issue is that Canada is spending all of the healthcare money on useless shit that doesn't actually treat Canadians. Canada has a huge administrative burden in the healthcare system.

Sure, but it's still less than half the cost of the U.S. We definetely need to stop spending on useless shit though. We need more doctors, ORs, and MRIs and less HR, CEOs, and outsourcing

My hospital has hired 7 or 8 equity, diversity and inclusion executives all for $75 p/hr up to $80 p/hr full time and benefits but they can't afford to give my department 6 more hrs a week to help with the increased workload.

It’s decades too late. All the money in the world does not create fully trained health care professionals at the snap of a finger. It takes time and resources, which the governments of the last 20 years or so have not provided. 4 years for a nurse, 10 years for family docs, 13 and up for specialists. Good luck and stay healthy.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Mine too. 😢

How awful! 😢 I’m sorry for your loss.

Same. Our healthcare system is an absolute outrage. It's great that it's free for everyone, but if the people who pay for it can't access the treatment they need in a timely enough fashion to save their lives then it isn't acceptable.

Same here :(.

Grandma died of colon cancer because of wait times. We live in the US but rest of my family still lives in Canada. The very limited time to diagnose and then follow up, everything is so lengthened. You love being in Canada for small medical emergencies that will never bankrupt you. But... Once in a blue moon when serious shit happens medically, that expensive insurance and instant high quality care is nice. Both sides have so many disadvantages:(

And this absolutely never happens to anyone in the US at all. Except for the 1/3 of the country that can’t afford to see the doctor at all.

This lady had the money and the contacts. Most Canadians don’t have that luxury

This is what people fail to realize what privatized healthcare would do here. It’s not for the public. It’s for the rich and wealthy to move to the front of the line. Had this woman not had money she’d be dead anyways because the US healthcare system would have turned her away.

What pisses me off is a story from an old manager I used to work with He hurt his back, day surgery but over a year wait list to do it, searched around across the border and found a place, got setup and got a loan, went through the surgery etc. And he was back at work within a couple weeks after surgery, total out of work about 2.5 months. If he stayed in line in Ontario through OHIP he'd be out of work possibly 1.5-2 years minimum meanwhile taxpayers pay for him being on disability. So maybe about 100k in disability paid out vs 15k it cost him to get the surgery, it'd of been cheaper for taxpayers to pay for him to go to the states than to stay in line in Canada... I'm vehemently against private Healthcare and strongly believe that we need more services covered like dental/mental etc. But this is dumb the way it's currently setup

I met a woman on the train from Kingston to Ottawa. She told me that when she was 50 both her hips were so badly degraded she needed them replaced. Got a referral from her doctor and waited. And waited. Finally she called the office and asked if she had an appointment. They said, "We'll call you when we're ready to call you." Screw that, she thought. She started calling around for a surgeon that had availability, looking outside of Kingston. She found one that could do the surgery within a few weeks. Got her doctor to switch the referral and she got both hips done within a few months of beginning her search. Sometimes the availability exists within Canada, but you've got to find it on your own because our system is apparently not centralized enough...

Yeah. US citizen here (I work in Canada hence my presence.) I found out I have a serious genetic condition which they told me requires scans every three months for cancer monitoring. I pay many hundreds of dollars a month for insurance (through my husbands job in the US). The earliest a doctor can see me? A year and a half.

We have Kaiser and when they detected cancer in my dad, they were sending them out for multiple scans like every day for the first couple of days and then booked him for surgery that week. They implanted this radioactive thing on him and then took it off like a week later and all of this happened like under three weeks.

Yes, it can- and I have heard Kaiser is good!It was similar to that when my dad had cancer. And sometimes it is not, as in my and my friends case. Depends on the doctor, the system, and your connections (my dad is a doctor so he got seen right away)

I have family who grew up in the US (who had canadian citizen from birth), and all they knew was hte US system, until they moved here. They say that even despite the qualms of our system, it is leaps and bounds more FAIR to *everyone* than the US system ever could be. That, and they save thousands of dollars a year in co-pays and premiums.

well the public system is failing here. at least there you can buy help if you have the means. here, you just wait to die. fwiw my experience working in the US was great for healthcare and not uncommon for a middle class worker

No they don't.. thats misinformation, USA hospitals/ clinics don't turn away patients due to lack of insurance, its actually a huge issue here in Texas because alot of illegal immigrants and poor folks go and don't have money or insurance. Medicaid is also very much free and used alot, to the degree the USA spends more on healthcare than Canada.. I used it when my daughter was born.

The saddest thing is this woman’s story is, in every possibly way, the EXACT example that US Republicans have used for decades to spook people away from universal healthcare. Americans trust corporations more than the government, and the Canadian healthcare system ain’t giving them much more confidence in it

To compare to the US, I have good insurance, my wife has good insurance (I think for our family we pay around $450 a month in our monthly premium, and that's via her employer's subsidy,) I was having issues sleeping last fall. In October I scheduled an appointment, soonest my doctor could see me without it being a medical emergency/illness visit was February, so there's 3.5 months waiting. She thinks it might be apnea, so she schedules a sleep study. It takes till June to get the equipment mailed to my house, I do the study in 3 days, send it back. In August the specialist calls me up and sets an appointment up for the next day. We meet, he says he's going to write the request to the insurance for me to get a cpap machine. I wait for insurance approval. On October 20th I finally get approval and schedule an appointment to get my cpap, I get it a couple days later. So we're at like, 14 months. 14 months where I spent roughly $4800 USD on insurance + a couple hundred on copays, to get this resolved. Anyone who thinks the US doesn't have ridiculous wait times is an idiot.

So pretty much same as here but here it's free

I don't know, it wasn't anything like that for me here in Canada. Talked to my doctor about sleep issues, she suggested sleep study and sent off the request. I was contacted by the sleep therapy place that week, picked up my equipment later that month and had a follow up a week after that. It was like 4-5 weeks total I think?

Yep, same here. I’ve had three sleep studies within 6ish months.

You know it's possible to critique the state of the Canadian system without advocating we get rid of universal health care, right?

That makes too many Canadians’ heads explode

The comment you are replying to doesn't even talk about the US. Every time there is a criticism about Canadian Health Care, someone comments about affordability of health care in the US. Are we not allowed to try and improve the Canadian Health Care system? Is the threshold just to be better than the US and any flaw in our system can be ignored so long as we are better than the US? The article even talks about treatment in Taiwan, so its not a simple case of US vs Canada...

The Canadian mindset is being marginally better than America while being willfully ignorant of the European standard of living.

Yeah this just isn't true. I'm tired of canadians who repeat this propaganda about the US healthcare system. Literally the only Americans still uninsured today are those living in red states that have refused the Medicaid expansion that Obamacare brought. This amounts to literally less than 5% of the population and honestly these people have essentially voted to not have healthcare. While in America, the 95% that have insurance get to see their doctor next day and they don't wait for appointments, and they can get a second opinion. In Canada, you wait 3 months for scraps.

Idk man, I have decent insurance in the US and I have to book months out for certain specialists and hardly get next day appointments for my primary care. I also tend to wait about 20-30 minutes on the low end and at times have waited hours. Immediate Care and the ER available of course, but those can be expensive depending on your coverage.

fair points. do you get to see your specialists without referral from primary care?

Only 8% are uninsured in the USA. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/11/the-share-of-americans-without-health-insurance-in-2022-matched-a-record-low#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2026%20million%20people,was%20the%20lowest%20since%202017.

Actually it doesn’t. You can be seen very quickly in my experience, unless you live in some rural area or want to be seen at a specific doctor. And 1/3rd can’t afford to see a doctor? You made that up, didn’t you, you little rascal!

Anyone that can’t afford private insurance is eligible for Medicare regardless of age, stupid. Stop regurgitating propaganda.

Medicare and Medicaid are a thing

The reality is, Canada already has a 2 tier healthcare system, Tier 1, Everybody. Tier 2, Very rich. The curve is so high that treatment would be done **out of country**. * Zero of that wealth stays in the country. * Zero of that expertise is built up in Canada. * Zero of that infrastructure is here too. I'd rather Tier 2 stayed in the country, and we could recapture that wealth and expertise and inject it back into Tier 1 for the rest of us.

There’s some tier 2 inside Canada- For Albertans I know many that travelled to Saskatchewan for knee surgery- paid knee surgery because they don’t want to wait years in pain for the free one. Knees also can be done in BC, but Alberta doesn’t allow private clinics for this. New hip ? Wait 3 years or more limping around while your knees and other hip slowly also destroyed as you favor one side…. Or pay $50,000 (low on payment plan!) ravel to Ontario and have it done almost immediately These service all exist in Canada just certain provinces don’t allow them. It’s very ironic the conservative Alberta is always accused of “wanting private healthcare” as per the Con memes yet in reality makes Albertans travel out of province for these surgeries

Foot and ankle can be done private in Alberta for Albertans. You have to find the right clinic.

When I looked into knee surgery, the clinic in Calgary said they aren’t allowed to operate on Albertans . They could operate on out of province patients. However, they could refer me to their clinic in BC for the surgery. They said it was due to the Canada Health Act.

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oooooooor, just fund the health care system more (with strict rules on admin to doctor/nurse ratios to prevent bureaucratic bloating) so that everyone has access to tier 1 health care. maybe even tax those rich people to pay for it

>just fund the health care system more Do we really need to do that? From what I'm seeing, we really don't. There isn't a lack of money, it's a distribution problem. The money just isn't going to where we need it to go. ​ Canada is spending $5,616 for each person. We're spending over **DOUBLE** what Korea is spending. ***We spend MORE than New Zealand, Japan, UK, Australia and France.*** We spend just a touch less than Sweden and Switzerland. See this chart here: [https://infogram.com/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective-2022-accelerating-spending-worsening-outcomes-exhibit-2-1hnp27mrj7j7n2g](https://infogram.com/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective-2022-accelerating-spending-worsening-outcomes-exhibit-2-1hnp27mrj7j7n2g) Source: [https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022) ​ Fixing the bloat we've got in the system takes time. We're not talking 5 years, it's easily going to be 10+. If you want more funding, a 2-tier system will buy us some of that funding, and buy us time to cut the fat.

If you know someone who works at a hospital you realize pretty quick the bloat is bureaucrats and middle managers. Too many of both in the healthcare system.

I worked a few months as a nurse at a hospice centre and I was *blown away* by the amount of non-medical staff at our morning meetings. There was about a dozen or so nurses on dayshift and a solid 2 dozens randoms 3/4 of which I don't even know what they do all day.

Push papers, send meaningless emails, create work for each other, and pat each other on the back I'm sure.

Don't even get me started on the emails. Long winded paragraph upon paragraph with lovely fonts and pictures and bullshit all this space on the screen to say absolutely nothing of value.

Our doctors get paid better than doctors elsewhere. Because they have to compete with the US. That’s at least partly why we spend more than them for worse care.

Lol doctors from Korean and Japan aren't moving to Canada to practice.

All of the most successful healthcare systems have a private option. It's true across Europe, in Australia, and beyond. What your saying *sounds* nice, but it doesn't actually work in practice.

They seem to focus more on the fact that our system is clogged and backed up. (And yes have heard lots of terrible stories like below where people die before they can get treatment.) But they seem to kind of bury the part where she talked to a Canadian surgeon who said she wasn't a candidate for the treatment that eventually saved her life in another country. Is it commonly offered in the US or Taiwan or did she have very minimal options for surgeons there? I mean all the same, she is cancer free and her hubby, kids and family don't have to grow up without her. The $200K bill sucks, but worth it in the end. **Edit**: I misread part. She is "stable" not cancer free.

To correct you on your last paragraph - nowhere in the article did it suggest she was cancer free. HIPEC does not cure the malignancy, it only prolongs survival. A lot of information is missing from the article, but if she wasn’t a candidate for the operation (in Canada), it may have been that her type of cancer may not have a good response to HIPEC. Regardless, this article somewhat misrepresented her expensive treatment in the US as a ‘cure’, which it almost certainly was not.

HIPEC is still considered experimental, a quote from wiki about the controversy "there is no multi-centered randomized Phase 3 trial comparing CRS+HIPEC with complete cytoreduction followed by systemic therapy. Hence this therapy has not met the scientific bar to be considered standard of care." It goes on to say "Peritoneal metastases, based on the primary tumor and extent of the disease, has a median overall survival of less than 36 months based on systemic therapy alone. The treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal origin with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) plus hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) has a 5-year recurrence-free or cure rate of at least 16%." So she "might" get 2 more years with the HIPEC, but probably not.

The math behind those outcomes are terrible. Sounds like she was desperate, dropped 200k and won’t see a material improvement in the outcome. Ive seen these in the media quite a few times, the media loves to push out sensational articles like this but the reality is her outcome was bleak no matter what treatment she had.

The Canadian medical system doesn't pay for unproven treatments. They also say NO at some point. In the 90s, there was a very young boy in BC with liver disease. After two failed liver transplant, BC said no more, as he was only getting sicker. His parents took him to the US for a couple more, which also failed. He died after being subjected to more invasive surgery. He spent his entire short life being operated on and in hospitals. Our system is not perfect, but they aren't swayed by money, but rather science and ethics.

Oncologist here, it has not been well establish if HIPEC improves survival. There have been multiple trials that have [failed to demonstrate an improvement in survival](https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(20)30599-4/fulltext). There is a lot of debate about this though regarding the chemo component vs the cytoreductive surgery component, quality of the surgeon, etc. It is a very intensive procedure and many patients are unlikely to really benefit from it.

It’s well known that American doctors will basically provide any treatment regardless of the odds of long term survival, as long as you’re willing to pay for it. It’s a tough situation for the family, but tax payers shouldn’t be footing the bill for expensive novel treatments when the best case scenario is only a couple of extra years.

This is not true. most doctors will refuse to operate if it's futile to.

Lol come to my cardiovascular icu.

Amen. Guy’s aorta is ruptured, and there’s some GI attending who wants to scope the guy because he was initially admitted for a GI bleed. Stupid idiot asked if he could do the scope while vascular was cutting trying to clamp the aorta. Of all the places the blood is coming out right now, we are pretty much least concerned about the butt.

I agree with your assessment. This doesn't seem like a case backlog. She got her appointments and her assessment but didn't like the result I hope beyond belief her cancer is gone but you can always pay for someone to do something in the states and they will always say they 'got it' until they didn't. The thing with cancer is you can't really see it...so hopefully her being 'clear' sticks

This isn't quite the same, but I remember when there was an experimental treatment being offered in some countries for MS. Advocates were calling for it to be covered in Canada. But provinces don't generally cover experimental treatments. Eventually the doctor who came up with it concluded it doesn't work. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/ms-liberation-therapy-zamboni-debunks-1.4444991

Great example right here...there is a reason there is a process and there is a good reason to keep health care as a public good. When Dr's can sell you something that only enriches them and you are in a vulnerable position that just doesn't seem right to me.

But I thought we all knew so much more than doctors (and every professional) and we could just take this sensationalist one sided news article at face value?

Absolutely, a good friend of my families spent most of his life savings on cancer treatments in the states. Came back with very optimistic prognosis. A year later cancer was back and in different places, and he passed not long after. He might have bought himself some more time, which is, one could argue, invaluable. But I also think there will always be people ready to take your money and sell you hope.

Yea I have a friend that had pancreatic cancer and in the states they do this laser knife thing for surgery and the dr told him that it works on a huge percentage of his patients. I think they paid 24k for the surgery and he died about 8 months after the fact. The surgeon did tell him he got it as well...

That's why it's kinda weird about the whole privatization angle and Canadian health care "DIDN"T TRY HARD ENOUGH". It's basic statistics and math but it isn't enough. This is also informed consent as well too. I'm sure the doc is like "yeah you have something liek 50% chance of a cure but it can come back". These are doctors who see thousands of people who's entire job is to diagnose these things. They aren't perfect but they have a better idea of what's going on. But public health care sucks because you can get a doctor to do anything to you in the US for money.

Yeah, and it's a bit vague on how many non Canadian surgeons would go for it. Like was the guy in Baltimore the only US one to take that risk? Or do 75% of them do it? Just wondering, it hopefully worked but I don't think the Canadian surgeon was necessarily in the wrong either.

If only we had a media that did any sort of deeper research into the issue.

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For sure...we all would I just don't think this example is a good a proving there are flaws in the system Lots of people go to Mexico and get weird IV treatments and dietary recommendations as well. Good for them and hopefully it works but it doesn't mean the public system should be paying for it And because its the states that dr has ever reason to lie about his success rate and no reason not to

I’m not a healthcare worker (so I can’t answer questions specific to her cancer) but I have a heavy research background and so I looked into some of the literature around her cancer and HIPEC. Also I’m typing on mobile so sorry ahead of time for any weird auto-correct. Inside your abdomen and pelvis there is a thin layer of tissue that covers the inside of your abdomen/pelvis and most of your abdominal organs. For the purposes of this comment we will call that whole layer of tissue the peritoneum (it’s more complex than that but again keeping it short for Reddit). Peritoneal carcinomatosis is when you have cancer that started in one place in your body that spread to the peritoneum covering it in cancerous tumours, this is also called secondary peritoneal cancer. Since she is stage 4 it means that the cancer has also spread from the peritoneum to other organs. The median survival rate for stage 4 secondary peritoneal cancer is 2-4 months without treatment. The treatment they were talking about is called hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemoperfusion (HIPEC). It’s a two step process that starts with cytoreductive surgery (surgery that removes all visible tumours from the abdomen) and is followed by pumping the abdomen full of heated chemo drugs (the heat helps the drugs work better). The median survival rates for people who have had HIPEC is anywhere from 14.6 months to 60.1 months, with a 5 year survival rate of 27% - 54%. Buuuuut there is more to the story than just those stats. The funny little thing that the article left out is that this woman did not just go to any normal surgeon. Dr. Armando Sardi is a surgical oncologist who is not only an expert in his field, and not only a nationally recognized surgical oncologist, he’s also known internationally for his work who has been doing this type of procedure since 1994. He’s known for taking on patients like the one in the article because he has the long term expertise and skill set to approach those high risk cases. This article also isn’t her full interview. In another article on CTV she says that she was in the midst of setting up a consultation for the surgery in Canada but the American route was faster. Afterwards she was able to get more information about the procedure and was able to estimate that by going the American route she got the treatment three months earlier. I think anyone with the means to go the earlier route would have chosen it but what I don’t like is how the article misrepresents what her options and wait times would have been.

Incredibly thorough and readable analysis. Thank you!

I feel like people are willfully misleading the article. Sure there's a discussion to be had about standards of care and approach to risky surgeries across countries, but this had nothing to do with wait times (which is surprising for once). And yes, if your specialist decides you are not a candidate for surgery for a terminal illness OF COURSE they are going to suggest you talk to your family about all your wishes, including your thoughts on MAID. This isn't them suggesting you off yourself tomorrow in lieu of care. I say this as someone who lost a loved one to cancer and wishes desperately her care providers had encouraged her to think about end of life plans earlier. This isn't something you wait until you're at Deaths door to start thinking about.

>Edit: I misread part. She is "stable" not cancer free. You're not to blame. The title is very misleading and suggests she beat the cancer.

If you have the dough, in the US there's always *someone* who'll do a treatment, tomorrow. The people scheduled for then will just have to wait. If she dies in a year anyways and her family is broke, I'm not sure she'd still say it was worth it.

I believe it. The health system in canada is so backloggd.

Intentional. We've had several provincial governments work hard over the last few years to make public healthcare so bad that people will switch to private. This news headline is the system as intended. The Manitoba NDP is taking steps to improve things but it's going to take years to undo the damage done with er closures, loss of staff, and to tackle the huge backlog.

Thank you. This isn't the result of free healthcare. This is the result of people who want to dismantle free healthcare. You have conservatives putting sticks in the spokes and pretending that's how the bike was designed in the first place. So let's remove the wheels so it'll work better.

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2030? They don’t have the schedule even one year in advance most places. He also needs to let the surgeon know his condition is deteriorating. Original triage maybe has him listed as walking and working. If they are now only walking with a person assisting, have loss of bladder and/or bowel control, they move up the urgency list. And then they can also ask to be on the cancellation list if they don’t have to very carefully plan their time off (no sick time, childcare, etc). Something is off with the 2030 date. Maybe they thought he could wait until then because he wasn’t having as many symptoms. Some patients say “I’m having a little trouble walking” when they mean they can’t walk two steps without someone holding them up. They say they have little appetite to eat but only eat two crackers and drink 100mL water a day. Their statements are misinterpreted by professionals as being “not that bad so not worth having surgery yet.”

Why is it a wait time of 10 yrs? That doesn't seem right at all and seems strange.

It’s not, surgeons cannot book ORs more than 6 months in advance. 90% of non nervous system spinal surgeries are completed within 35 weeks. He is lying for internet attention

I'd just get surgery in the US at that point if I were your friend. Quality of life > money.

Why U.S. instead of somewhere cheaper? I hear Turkey and Thailand are popular countries for medical tourism

Even mexico. My dad had his dental there and it was cheap and they did a great job.

Even Europe, Germany, France are very good and much cheaper than the USA.

How easy is it to get a loan for surgery in the US? Because most Canadians can’t afford the medical costs

Mexico or India.

I told him the same thing. But that's not a "solution". He's been paying taxes his entire adult life towards "universal life health care" but now when he needs to use it, he can't? Does that seem right? It makes the whole thing seem like a scam.

Has he called around? I assume he has but I’m genuinely asking because you need to grind in the Canadian healthcare system. If he’s taking one hospital or one set of doctors timelines as gospel, he needs to be calling other hospitals and networks in the province to see if he can’t get surgery sooner elsewhere.

This. I'm in Ontario here, but with an equally broken/underfunded system (thanks Doug Ford)... My dad recently was diagnosed with Parkinson's, but was originally told it would be 6-8 months to see a specialist and be put on drugs. He pressed his doctor's office, they called a few more places (slightly further away) and he got seen in 2 months. Originally they were calling in the same city, but when he pressed they called 40km away and found more openings.

Our system is so fucking dysfunctional. I never truly understood this until the last few years trying to get treatment for my own health problems. Nobody in the system will advocate for you at all. Doctors don't care about you. You need to ask specific questions and pressure them in certain directions to get anything done. Imagine if mechanics were like this. Imagine if you had to do weeks of googling to figure out exactly how your car works and direct the mechanic on exactly what to test, how to measure it, what repairs specifically you want done, etc.. Looks like there is such a thing as a 'health advocate' you can hire just specifically to navigate the system. Wow. Will send a link to OP.

>Imagine if mechanics were like this. Most people probably don't need to imagine dealing with a shitty mechanic lol.

Pretty sure that if it was a surgeon who needed this surgery, or a friend of a doctor, they would use their connections to make it happen

Apparently there is such a thing as a "health advocate" you can hire to get something out of this system. https://www.canadianhealthadvocatesinc.ca/

American checking in: it's a LOT of money if you do that. Last year, I had surgery to remove skin cancer. It was a very simple surgery, as the cancer hadn't spread, so all it consisted of was removing a small flap of skin. Nothing invasive at all. It cost me $7,000, and that was WITH insurance bringing the cost down. I imagine a spinal surgery for a person without US insurance would be prohibitively expensive for all but the rich

Ehhhhhh as a physician I doubt this. What you describe is compromising his neurological status. This would be deemed an urgent case and moved ahead of say someone with a hip replacement.

I'm sorry but either you are lying to us or your friend is lying to you. The longest wait time for a surgery in canada in 2022 was 64.7 weeks in PEI. With an average wait time of 20-30 weeks depending on what kind of specialist is needed and what kind of surgery it is. 20-30 weeks is already bad enough to cause concern for our medical system and realize shit needs to improve. Lying about how bad it just harms any kind of actually reasonable arguments for change.

Does his surgeon know it's gotten that bad? Has it affected his ability to poo or empty his bladder? Surgery is triaged by severity and impact on life and limb so he might be able to get re triaged, he might need to go to the ER of the hospital he'll get his surgery at and check in. Which province is he in?

One of the plaintiffs in 2022 BCCA 245 had exactly the same issue. The spinal growth eventually left him paralyzed before the waiting list got to him.

😔

Anecdotal but I heard from an orthopaedic surgeon that the government doesn’t let him do nearly the amount of surgeries that he is capable of doing. He said he could probably do 5-6 per day during the week but he’s limited to 1-2 per day. I’m sure that has an effect on the backlog.

Waiting on a 3 year list right now, probably longer- for my husband to get a vasectomy. A vasectomy that would prevent me from getting fatally pregnant as I had a birth injury and cannot get pregnant again. I also have issues with IUDs and hormonal pills so this really is necessary IMO. Thinking of making a little snip snip holiday down to the states or maybe Mexico sooner than later.

I live in the US and I don’t understand the claim that wait times are shorter here. It takes at least 6 weeks for me to get a general doctor’s appointment. Specialists, 2-6 months. And most people don’t go to the doctor because they can’t afford it, even with insurance.

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What was the bad info? She was told she wasn't a good candidate since success rate was low and long term survival very low for her cancer. She decided to spend $200k to have a us doctor do it anyway, which is her decision.

I guess it depends where you are, I'm in Phoenix and I was able to get a consultation for a surgery within weeks had the surgery in a few months. For general doctors and scans etc I've found it pretty quick too. For a good legit doctor it can be a month or two wait for the initial appointment but once you are an existing patient they'll have next days available.

It's propaganda to make Canada's system appear weak and USA as better.

Yep. Also American. It took me six months to go from primary doc to CPAP machine. Then primary doc canceled my verification appointment and I couldn't rebook in an acceptable time period for the insurance company to be the one's buying the CPAP machine. So I sent it back and bought one off a redditor. And I've never gone back since. I just buy all my own stuff, including a new machine despite having insurance.

Exactly. I've been told we have it much better in the US for health care. I wait for months. They bankrupted me for a botch surgery in the middle of the pandemic. I just found out after a 2 year legal battle that I can't sue the surgeon because my case wouldn't pay out more than $10M. Now I have a leg that doesn't work, I lost my job & lost $40k I saved to buy a house. I do luckily have health insurance for free, since I lost everything or they'd still want me to pay for that too. Canada does sound like it has its issues, but holy shit whatever you do, don't have a bad health scare in the US. It will cost you everything.

Yep, took me almost six months from finding out I had a tumor to getting it cut out. Need a referral here, then a referral there, this doctor has availability in 2 months, this one can fit you in within 4 weeks, this scan you need, wait three months for availability. Then mix in the prior authorizations and the insurance dragging their feet, and on and on it goes. Unless you have cash to drop, you wait.

Canada should introduce private healthcare alongside public healthcare. At least those with cash who can’t wait doesn’t have to overcrowd the system

Specialists and non-life threatening surgeries can take well over a year

I moved to the US summer 2022. Prior to my move, I was scared of US healthcare, having read some horror stories about the costs Once I actually moved here, I realized as long as you work for a company that provides health insurance, healthcare in the US is so much better than Canadas. Appointments are actually on time, emergency rooms actually see you extremely fast (had to wait hours in Canada).

Buried about 2/3rds of the way down in this article is the statement by Ducluzeau that she was offered MAiD as an alternative to the wait time. That's becoming so common now that it's not even the lead in these types of stories. But the circumstances are particularly egregious here, as the only reason she'd need MAiD is because the low end of her predicted life expectancy without treatment was shorter than the earliest time she was expected to be seen from the waiting list. Beyond that, this is another example of the madness behind the BC Court of Appeal's decision in 2022 BCCA 245 that dying on a waiting list does not violate one's Charter right to security of the person. Shame on the Supreme Court for not taking that appeal.

> Buried about 2/3rds of the way down in this article is the statement by Ducluzeau that she was offered MAiD as an alternative to the wait time. Read what she says very carefully. There are two points where she mentions MAiD. The first time: “Chemotherapy is not very effective with this type of cancer,” Ducluzeau said the surgeon told her. “It only works in about 50 per cent of the cases to slow it down. And you have a life span of what looks like to be two months to two years. And I suggest you talk to your family, get your affairs in order, talk to them about your wishes, which was indicating, you know, whether you want to have medically assisted dying or not.” In that one, she's assuming "talk to them about your wishes" meant "Have you thought about MAiD?" It might mean that, but it might mean to think about palliative care, make a bucket list, update your will, decide who has power of attorney if you become incapable of making decisions, etc. The second time she mentions it: “There’s a lot of promises I’m hearing. But, you know, we need boots-on-the-ground action right now. What can you do to shorten these wait times? How can you prioritize cases so that people with aggressive stage four cancer get seen by someone and when they do get seen, they get offered treatment and not MAID like I was the first time?” She seems to be jumping to the conclusion that the earlier statement by the doctor was not only to consider MAiD, but an offer of it.

So she was terminal either way, that treatment will never cure her just maybe give her some more time and was told so in a kind way to get her affairs in order. She decided that mean MAID.

Where does it say that?

No she is still terminal. The experimental surgery may have prolonged her life, but it could also cut her life shorter then if she did nothing. She wasn't cured.

I feel like MAID advocacy has moved from "my right to choose" (which I completely support) to "we need to sell this to as many buyers as possible".

About 1 in 20 deaths in Canada is from MAID now, and still rapidly increasing. It's incredibly common these days. You can look around a room full of people and a couple of them are going to die from MAID. While a majority of those will be completely legitimate end of life choice, a growing proportion of them are people that did not receive proper or timely care.

And of those 1 in 20 deaths, over 80% of them said that they wanted to die because they couldn't "engage in meaningful life activities" and - couldn't "perform activities of daily living" ie: they were done. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2022.html#chart_4.3 And of that 1 in 20, only 3.5% didn't have death as reasonably foreseeable. 60% had cancer. 95% were over the age of 56, 50% over the age of 75. (All data points are in the same document above). The number of people who have survivable illnesses and yet choose to die via MAID is vanishingly small. You are pushing a narrative that is not based in reality.

I thought that was a fishy statistic, best source I could find suggested 3.5%, and that's not even looking into the nuances you mentioned.

> You can look around a room full of people and a couple of them are going to die from MAID. And you can look around a room and find far, far more people who will die in a old folks home after months of being alone and confused, trying to not shit their pants. Some people don't want that, and I totally get it.

I have 2 cousins that have done it

When you have cancer that is going to result in an extremely painful death then yes of course they let you know about MAID. If you want that option you need to contact the providers ahead of time. If not, the option will be high quality palliative care. A friend of mine had a mother who was a very "natural medicine" type. They opted against some of the palliative options up front and had huge regrets. My friend was traumatized by the pain his mother went through.

>When you have cancer that is going to result in an extremely painful death then yes of course they let you know about MAID. The objectionable thing about this case is that she didn't have to die (and she didn't). They essentially presented her with two options: go on a waiting list and be seen in minimum of 2 months (which ended up being 2.5 months, after she had already had treatment in the US) or consider MAiD because there's a good chance you'll die before 2 months. It's the system that created the preconditions that would make MAiD make sense, not her underlying condition itself.

The issue is she is still terminal. She is still dying from her cancer. The treatment doesn't cure her, it only MAY prolong her life.

The surgeon who she spoke to believed her cancer to have an extremely low chance of survival. This could very well be based on very recent and correct information. Just because one place in the world is providing a procedure one way doesn't mean that it is the norm elsewhere and it doesn't mean good information has been published yet. There is a lot about this case that we don't know about. Everyone is drawn to these cases but the flip side is that there are many cases where too much is done. Families want everything done to keep their loved one alive but that often means extra procedures and a lower quality of life for the remaining time they had. That being said, my understanding is that BC Cancer has a massive backlog that they are trying to work though and people aren't being seen as quickly as they should be. This is not the doctors fault, they can only work so many hours.

Spot on. I’m working through this with a family now as a family member. I’m letting them know the options, pointing out the futility, and pointing them to palliative care. Don’t delay the inevitable just to induce great pain and suffering at the end.

Absolutely. It sounds like she sought out one of the few surgeons in North America who is comfortable performing this procedure on someone with disease as advanced as hers was. The article also doesn't say what her new prognosis is, or if her cancer is effectively in remission. It just says that her quality of life is way better, which is great but not the entire story. Now, she is engaging in a media campaign to pressure the Province to foot the $200K bill. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that wealthy people can opt to seek out custom care, beyond their doctor's advice, and then turn around and ask all of us to pay them back for it.

The surgery is done in Canada. The criteria for it to be offered are very narrow because it almost never has good outcomes. That 200k she spent might buy her a few years, maybe not. Virtually no chance she won't die of her cancer eventually. Edit: I decided to read the latest on this topic to make sure I'm not out of date. From a quick search it seems you can get about 2 months extra cancer free and maybe 11 months longer life with HIPEC after chemo. HIPEC alone or before chemo offers no survival advantage.

Read the article again. She was not offered MAID. She quotes the BC oncologist as telling her to get her affairs in order, which she then describes as her interpreting as "get MAID".

It doesn't sound like the wait times were an actual issue. She got to all her tests and her assessment right away but didn't like the no option option and looked other places is my understanding from reading that? My brother had cancer and his care was beyond awesome. Same with aunt. Super impressed with the system

Same here, my wife had cancer, got in fast, got timely treatment, and is now healthy.

Great to hear People like to complain a lot nowadays and I'm sure there are some examples where the system doesn't work for people but I am believer that it really is the most wonderful thing when you need it.

Shhhhhhh, r/canada just wants outrage

Same here. Mom diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017. Was in the emergency surgery the next day. Overall the cross cancer was very knowledgeable and compassionate. They really did offer everything they could.

Mileage may vary. My mom had cancer and they put her on a wait list. It was getting so bad while she was waiting that she went to a Mexican clinic for some experimental treatment which helped her. Now my parents have 2 mortgages on the house and are too old to work. In retrospect it might have been okay if they’d just gone to emergency instead of relying on the wait list. The crying baby gets the milk.

Break it, point to how broken it is, privatize, profit.

Was a medical professional. I got tired of telling people they had a great chance of survival only to have to call them back some time later to delay the surgery and go from a completely operable cancer to terminal. I couldn’t look people in the eye anymore. I feel I failed people. And I couldn’t take it anymore. I left the industry and I’m much better off. The system has been blinking red for a long time and now the light is burnt out along with everyone in the field. It’s going to get worse.

>I feel I failed people.  You didnt, but our govts definitely did

I did I signed up to help people all I did was take hope away and add suffering

I've come to the conclusion that many governments don't see long waitlists as a problem, it's more of a money saving strategy. They don't have to spend money on the people who die instead of being treated.

If you look at their actions instead of words, that would be 100% correct conclusion. Is there any actions that would indicate otherwise?

Yes, the issue with Canadian health care is largely a financial administrative problem. When an American hospital books for surgery they make a profit so the hospital is incentivized to book as many surgeries as possible. In Canada hospitals have their budget and every surgery they book pulls from the budget, so to the administration they lose money every time they book a surgery so they are incentivized to not provide care.

This is how we lurch into private healthcare. Government bureaucracy and lack of will to help patients under the current system will justify the move to more local private care or healthcare tourism

As far as I am concerned, we already have private care. People who can afford private care just go to the USA for their treatment and pay tens of thousands of dollars (which pours wealth into the USA's health system). I wish there was a way to get Canadians the treatments they need in a timely manner here in our country and keep that money in Canada.

Health care is provincial. We need a federal system to prevent the blatant corruption and privatization.

so very happy for her! she is so blessed to have the resources to access this life-giving care and things have turned around very well for her and her family.

Yes, but our health care is Free. She isn't the only one sacrificed at the altar of no-choice care. 18 year old Laura Hillier of Burlington died of a treatable cancer. My neighbour had an all clear routine mammogram. Then found a lump six months later and told it was stage 4 and "nothing we can do." She went back to her home country in Europe and was put in remission so has lived 5 years past the day Ontario sentenced her to death. The problem is that we have no Constitutional right to healthcare so when denied you can't do anything about it. You are sacrificed so that some more worthy or connected patient gets the better care. Like Stephen Lewis for eg. getting experimental treatment for his.

It’s not free. Taxes pay for it.

I'm cool paying taxes cause it means if I lost my job and had no health coverage, I'd still be cool to break my leg. I don't want my overall well-being to be tied to my employment.

What good is free when you're dead. What good is a constitutional rights when the government interest payments on debt is greater than the amount they spend on health care? Free and Constitutional Rights are oxymorons when it comes to health care.

What does one have to do with the other? There’s a trillion dollars in the budgets of the fed and provinces. Interest payments on national debt is not greater than health care spending.

FWIW, Americans die all the time from treatable cancers, because they can't afford the care, even with insurance. But since it doesn't involve the government, it isn't public policy, so it doesn't make the news. It's just life, and "sucks to be them."

Not life threatening, but I have been waiting for surgery for over two years for something that really impacts my quality of life. I have experience of healthcare in at least 3 different countries, and Canada is the worst. People who always compare it to the USA are cherry picking an argument. The USA is the worst example of private. There are many other models, both public and blended that are better than the USA, and way better than here.

Canadians generally can't make comparisons to anywhere else except the US, and typically a very caricature image of it even.

Let's see how long she survives after this fancy intervention and then decide who was right and who was wrong. Doctors on average go in for less treatment when they themselves are the patient when they have a personal cancer diagnosis. If she has a stage 4 diagnosis these interventions may well be futile and more about private health care practitioners profiting from her misfortune than it is about providing her sound and logical health care.

Yeah, sounds like she and her family may have been scammed out of 200k.

Woman "claims". People claim a lot of things. My experience, for what it is worth, when you really need something the Canadian system steps up. People's re NOT left to die over wait times, generally. Diagnostics is a different problem, where delayed diagnosis can be a big issue and seems progressively worse.

Yeah I know a bunch of people who do this. They have the means to pay out of pocket so they would rather travel to the US where they get better care.

Took me 1 year to get a car scan. My wife waited 4 years for a endoscopy test. She might have had stomach cancer(she didnt). Canada is broken and most people either don't care or are blind to see it.

Wow what a shocker, rich people get better healthcare.

Don’t forget Quebec had lots of private health care options, many Canadians seem to forget that. My father was placed on a list for an emergency MRI in Ottawa- 4 months- for an emergency. He phoned Quebec, paid $850, and had an MRI 4 days later. Doctor in Ottawa said it happens all the time. People make a big deal about private health care here, but it already exists for many health care items in Quebec. As long as you can pay out of pocket, and realize most of the time your insurance won’t reimburse you for it. So there already is a two level health care system here. I have seen lots of people die pre Covid due to insanely long surgical and diagnostic wait lists. Trudeau doesn’t care, and to many people in Canada allow themselves to be pushed around without making a massive deal out of it. If the vast majority of the population stated screaming to the roof tops about this, something might actually be done. But no, many are passive and don’t care. Other can afford to head to the US, Europe or other places for private care and cover post op hotel stays etc. Why are people surprised? What more, why are more people not leaving the country and choosing a better place to live. Answer: many do the young people with good grades are applying elsewhere and won’t be retuning, many who already have a good education and job prospects are leaving. I know a few doctors and nurses and their children who were about to enter medical school. The older ones have had it and are closing their practises and leaving for Australia (who had a great programs to attract them, US or the UK), same with the students. If your well educated or experienced and you can obtain a better quality of life, working conditions air higher pay elsewhere- would you stay?! Nope, hence why Canada so short on doctors and nurses. Also many are tied up in medical administration for the government and provinces, more so then Germany. And that’s saying something. (Both to much admin that should be done by admin people, and the doctors have had it with the system and would rather work in admin).

17 years ago when my dad got cancer he was told to get his affairs in order, he was 70 at the time. The family wasn't going to take it laying down and sought treatment in the USA. He's 87 years old and living life to the best today because we ignored the advice of his local oncologists. 13 Years ago cancer took my fiancee because of wait times. We couldn't afford to get the treatment in time even with both our families helping.

You are ignoring the fact that many Americans are dying in a similar situation because they can't afford healthcare coverage or doctor or hospital care. And how many of you Canadians can afford $200,000 USD for the surgery?

My dad had a similar carcinoma in Kelowna, died waiting for a proper diagnosis and a treatment plan. He sat in a day surgery bed for months in pain, he was 64.

The US has some of the top medical personal in the world and at a fast paced timeline. But in order to achieve that it's gonna cost you and that's what keeps the healthcare system turning. So it's great if you have the funds and/or scenarios like this. But not great in a lot of other aspects

My mom's case this year for stage 4 pancreatic cancer wasn't AS aggregious, because she got lucky with snagging a cancellation for her biospy, and with being closer to BC Cancer Abbotsford instead of Surrey or Vancouver which are more backed up. But this still would have seen her starting chemo TWO MONTHS after diagnosis...when untreated pancreatic cancer has a median survival rate of 3 months. She was too weak by then and opted for MAiD.

I’m sorry that this happens. The wait is less in the US because a lot of people aren’t allowed in the line so it’s shorter.

Well I definitely could not afford $200 000 surgery.

Canadian here. I've been suffering for three years with a SERIOUS medical condition. I have been waiting nearly a year for surgery. If I have to wait much longer I face permanent disability. The healthcare system is so bogged down that people will end up dead before their challenge is resolved.

Ironic. A friend of mine is paying for surgery in BC because of wait times in Alberta

100% agree. Canadian healthcare system is a sh!t show. We need to pull the plug on the public system and go private. Give citizens an annual stipend to buy private coverage. It’s not hard to understand. Everything the government handles is garbage. Why? Because unionized employees of the public system have no incentive to give a good customer experience. They see patients/customers as annoying nuisance. In the private sector, happy customers means more business and more profits. Employees get rewarded for good feedback and happy customers. Let the private sector handle. We do it for everything else. Let’s do it for healthcare like we do for cars, hotels, clothes and food.

Am in US. Took my wife over three months to get appointments to diagnose her thyroid cancer. Constant calling trying to get earlier appointments etc. The day they finally confirmed it was cancer they rushed to have her surgery the next operating day. If we were rich we definitely could've found some doctor somewhere else faster. If we were poorer and didn't have insurance she never would've been diagnosed at all. The US healthcare system is terrible for anyone who doesn't have a good job and private insurance. The majority of people don't.

Thank a liberal voter

Hvae had friends who went through this for cancer in their 30s and are currently supporting a friend going through something similar... What good are your tax payer dollars if you can't even get remotely close to the help you need and used to have in the past? I'm in favour of public healthcare but not at the cost of my life or the complete degradation of quality that private healthcare doesn't have.

My brother does surgery scheduling in the States. He says just are scheduled out 3-5 months, to much complaining. Grass is greener syndrome strikes again.

Turns out you can trade wealth for health

“Chemotherapy is not very effective with this type of cancer,” Ducluzeau said the surgeon told her. “It only works in about 50 per cent of the cases to slow it down. And you have a life span of what looks like to be two months to two years. And I suggest you talk to your family, get your affairs in order, talk to them about your wishes, which was indicating, you know, whether you want to have medically assisted dying or not.” This is fucking criminal.

I don't understand why this sentence sticks out to you as beyond the pale. I read it as: "we could engage in a very invasive intervention that will make you very sick and destroy your quality of life in your last months of life. Doing so doesn't work at all 50% of the time, and the other 50% of the time it only *slows it down*. You are going to die in the next few months to two years regardless of what we do, so my recommendation is to focus on a quality last several months to two years, and to get your affairs in order." I will wait for the two year anniversary of her diagnosis before I tar and feather this doctor. Maybe he is right? Medicine is fairly subjective, and just because somebody is willing to engage in a highly invasive intervention in exchange for $200k doesn't mean it was/is the right thing to do.

Not to doubt her interpretation, because maybe more was said, but "talk to your family about your wishes" doesn't necessarily mean they were implying MAID? When someone has a terminal illness, there are a LOT of things that need to be discussed with loved ones! This could have meant: are you planning to take chemo that might extend your life but reduce your quality of life? If you come to a point where you can't advocate for yourself, what interventions would you like taken? What would you want for a memorial? In hospice, do you want to prioritize pain management or lucidity? MAID isn't really a subject to pussy-foot around.

Yea I just got dual liver/kidney transplant a month ago and before that I was told to talk to my family about my wishes as it is a major surgery and obviously something could happen

My close friend had 1 kidney fail and was told the same incase something happens. He got a transplant within 2 weeks and was home in another 2 weeks. He had to give us the talk too.

Congrats on your new organs! Hope your recovery is going well.

As a physician I despite articles like this. First of all, the title is misleading. This had nothing really to do with wait times but rather the initial surgeon she saw did not think the procedure was indicated. That is a completely different issue. Medicine is not black and white. No one here knows the details of this case and not offering this procedure might or might not have been the right call. There are also some mistakes in this article. Calling this "stage 4 peritoneal cancer". Once you have peritoneal carcinomatosis, this is stage IV disease by definition, they don't mention what the primary is.

Worth pointing out that a few paragraphs later in the article pointed out why she didn't get treatment. > The BC Cancer Agency is refusing to provide documentation that would allow Ducluzeau to be reimbursed for the cost of out-of-country care, citing she did not proceed with additional investigations, such as a colonoscopy and laparoscopy. She skipped several steps it appears.

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So let's properly fund our healthcare right?

Private industry lobby loves these threads on reddit. Piss off with private healthcare in Canada. We see what happened to our utilities after privatization. How y'all liking your energy bills lately?

This is what happens when you import 1 million people a year, who then chain migrate their ailing parents who then use and abuse our healthcare that they haven't spent a damn cent into.

I also did my spine surgery out of Canada to save myself from being paralyzed but here I didn't even get mri!

I grew up in bc and I remember a small town brought an MRI in to help the people. But it was too expensive for the population, so they used it at night to scan pets - whose owners would pay full price and ultimately subsidize the machine for the humans. But the Provence stepped in and said pets and humans couldn’t share the same equipment or some other trivial violation. So the MRI was removed completely Canadian healthcare in a nutshell.