Hacker News Reader

Comment by hourislate | Hacker News Reader

>potential healthcare collapse

Hate to break the news to you but the Canadian healthcare system collapsed a long time before Corona. Just ask anyone who has been to a hospital in Toronto before Corona.

View on HN

Doesn't Canada have one of the best healthcare systems in the world? If that how "collapsing" looks like to you, you might need to adjust your worldview.

The problem here is mostly the lack of available nurses and doctors, who have to pull insane shifts to compensate. Hospitals are also very concentrated in urban areas. Canada has 30% less nurses per capita than the US.

You obviously haven't been to a hospital in Toronto in the last 10 years. Go visit St Joes, you walk in and take a ticket like you're at the butchers. The ticket is to get in line for administration. After administration you wait 12 hours for someone to see you. Just peek through the emerg doors and you see people in hallways lying in beds. The Canadian medical system is shit compared to the US medical system.

Disclaimer: EXPAT who has used both.

I'm also an expat who's used both. No doubt the Canadian healthcare system has problems, but... I saw similar things and experienced similar wait times in American hospitals (Seattle), and then had the privilege of paying thousands of dollars for it.

There's a serious problem of a widespread lack of access to family doctors, ER overcrowding, and extremely long EMT response times.

At least, there is in BC. Each province manages health care as they see fit.

No.

Based on what? Your hunch?

This ranking says it's 24 in the world, after excluding microstates (anything under 1 million people): https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-heal...

I have been to Toronto hospitals. My only complaint is with the admissions clerks who take your info and are very slow about doing it.

I've been to hospitals in Toronto pre-covid. Nothing but good things to say. I've always been able to see a doctor quickly. When imaging was needed it was available quickly. Etc.

I'm told that the wait time for very-specialized specialists is unreasonable long (and believe it), but the general standard of care here is very good.

Unless you are about to die in the next month imaging can take month.. there is a reason why there was a pile of clinics in Buffalo that used to cater to Canadians. You drive across get your CT done get a CD then drive back. Alternatively you wait 2 month. Now you are just fucked

Or you can “know” people then you can get it done tomorrow.

I don't "know" people, connections have never played a role in the healthcare I received (except the lack of them I suppose). This is simply not my experience. I'll go over me actual experiences:

1. Potential appendicitis. Got a cat scan within hours of arriving at the hospital. Admittedly if this was actual appendicitis it would be a "about to die in the next month without surgery" situation (turned out not to be).

2. Weird long term issue relating to alcohol causing a literal pain in my side (sharp pain, relatively minor). Completely non-urgent, this existed since I first drank alcohol and the most likely explanation is that "some peoples bodies just don't like alcohol".

The doctor first asked for a ultrasound to diagnose that, no appointment necessary, literally walked into the ultrasound place, gave them the paperwork, got an ultrasound, walked out in under 20 minutes.

Ultrasound from that didn't end up turning up anything useful, so the doctor asked for a chess x-ray. This time an appointment was necessary, I made it via phone that night. A spot was available the next day. Again I walked in, got an x-ray, and left in under 20 minutes.

Various other tests (e.g. bloodwork for a few things) followed a similar pattern.

I do live in Toronto, and these experiences were downtown (the non-hospital imaging was all done in the kensington health building, I think the hospital was east general), which has a higher concentration of health services than most of Ontario/Canada.

> Hate to break the news to you but the Canadian healthcare system collapsed a long time before Corona. Just ask anyone who has been to a hospital in Toronto before Corona.

And the solution for an already collapsed health system is to overload it even more with a pandemic, right?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com