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Comment: I share the concerns about our health care system and suggestions how we may fix it. However, I see the problem much wider. Not just the health care system has failed us. Our politicians, our scientists, our judges, our police organizations and our educational institutions have failed us miserably. In 74 years of my life, I do not remember corruption on this scale, not even in a communist country that I grew up in. Let me just mention that a doctor has denied me an early treatment, when I had the Omicron infection in 2022 and it was still not too late to effectively stop the replication of the “virus”. I paid for it with serious illness and almost 12 months of Long Covid that followed.
I try to justify doctors who had invested time and money to get their education and start their careers, who have families to feed and mortgages to pay. I ask myself, “Do I have the right to expect that they sacrifice all of this and lose their licence by breaking the official narrative and required protocols?” The answer to this question is difficult but possible. By not helping their patients, doctors have acually contributed to the collapse of the system. An alternative approach was possible. If all doctors said “No”, like they had done several years earlier, when they went on strike and refused to take new patients, the government would have to back off, as it had done then. It is not happening, because, this time, doctors are not fighting for more money.
Since that strike, we have doctors limiting appointment times, charging for letters or certificates, and limiting appointments to only one issue at a time, even if there is time left to discuss two or more. Sometimes, the issue does not get resolved during one appointment, sick patients are sent to various tests, x-rays, and other labs, (with often long waiting times), the issue is not followed up and is forgotten. Then, your health deteriorates and you have to start all over, again. You make another appointment with the same issue and the doctor gets to charge the government, again, for the same, unresolved issue. You may get some pain killers to mute your symptoms but the underlying medical condition is not addressed. Then, we wonder why the system is bankrupt and the public healt care fails us! I also wonder how doctors would like teachers who decided to charge them for correcting their children’s work, marking their tests and writing their report cards, which is mostly done on teachers’ time but is still considered part of their job.
Some organizations and doctors suggest that we get rid of public health care system, that we privatize it and use private clinics, instead. I have checked some of these projects and their websites. As a retired Canadian, I would not be able to afford paying $700 or more for a 30-minute consultation with a nurse, and then more for actual tests and treatments. Also, public heath care system is the only way forward, if we want to help those who need it. Let me give you a concrete example:
Old people get sick more often and have more comorbidities than young people. Their immune system is not as efficient as the immunity of young people. As a result, they need health care services more often than their children and grandchildren. However, after they retire, they are not able to pay for such services by themselves. Therefore, it makes sense that the whole society contributes to the system. At 69, I had a heart attack and a quadruple bypass surgery that saved my life. I would not be alive today, if I had to pay for it out of my pocket.
To those who say, “Why should we pay for the treatment of old folks, instead of spending that money on ourselves?”, I say this: Most of my life, I contributed to the system, even though I did not need doctors, meds, or hospitals because I was young and healthy. I did this to help the vulnerable: the old, the sick and the disabled. I helped to raise you and worked hard to build a country that gave you a high standard of living. Now it is your turn to help me and others like me. If politicians and governments mismanaged the system, go and recover that money from them. I have done my part. And remember that you, too, will be old, one day.
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