There are few topics that get my blood boiling more than health care – my beloved Montreal Canadiens is one of them. What once was a trademark of Canada and a symbol of Canadian goodwill has become a shadow of its former self, run down by too many people, not enough money and inefficient practices. Something I was once very proud of, I am now very ashamed of. Oddly, my feelings on healthcare seem to mirror my feelings on Les Canadiens. But my focus here is not on hockey, or on what I’m sure is the top quality health care the members of the Canadiens receive, but the health care we receive, specifically we Albertans, since that is where I am speaking from.

Growing up under the realm of King Ralph, i watched health care fall on Alberta’s priority list. Our hospitals became crowded and seeing people sleeping in hallways became common to the point where they were simply a reality, just like filling up on gas. Small town doctors became fewer and further between, MRI’s became harder to get and hospital triage areas became backlogged and neglected. Slowly but surely, and right before our eyes, our system became based on dealing with emergencies rather then preventing them. And if you had the money, privatization was introduced as an answer to all of your problems; all of this when ironically our province was doing the best it had been doing since health care was introduced. And now, under Steady Eddy, it seems the only thing that is steady is the poor decision making streaming out of the Legislative building, beginning with the LPN vs RN debacle.

If you are not familiar with the LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse,) vs RN (Registered Nurse,) debacle, well prepare to be enlightened. The brain center of our Albertan government is teetering dangerously on declaring that our hospitals are fit to be staffed by, instead of the four-year University trained RN, the two-year college trained LPN. Does this bother only me? Not that I am against two-year college LPN programs, not at all, they most definitely have their purpose – in long-term care facilities or my grandma’s senior’s complex, but not in our emergency rooms and around our operating tables. If my husband is in a horrible car accident with his life hanging by a thread, I want to know the best are looking after him, not just what my government is wiling to pay for because obviously a life to our government is not worth the salary of a well trained RN. Now of course our government isn’t going to lay off all of these valuable RN’s, no, they will just give them a serious salary reduction. This will send most of ‘em packing to where they get paid fairly, and convince all current RN students to down-grade their education. Not a very comforting thought. Thankfully I have not needed to use our health care services lately and I can only hope that I never have to.

In what is the most prosperous province in Canada for the past decade, it is becoming easier to get health care elsewhere. Case and point, my step-mom. With life threatening heart problems, she has found better care south of our border than she has found within ours. If in need of surgery, it was possible to have it done within a day. Yes, within a day. An MRI, no problem, she got it done that day. No long lines where you are waiting for people to die off in order to move up, if you can pay, you can have the best health care money can buy. Luckily she has the money to pay for it. Unfortunately I would not. Now I am not a fan of privatized health care, and not just because i couldn’t afford it. The idea of shutting off a pacemaker or a dialysis machine because of an outstanding bill is disturbing, but it seems that this is the direction our province is headed. But what disturbs me more is that it seems the government is steering us in that direction knowingly and willingly, just to save a few bucks. Are we modeling our system after Vet clinics whereby we need to start putting people down if the bill gets too high?

Now I realize we are in the midst of an economic crisis and budget changes must be made. I get it, I’ve made a few adjustments to my personal budget as well. However, the things I cut were things like my Friday nights out, or my Starbucks coffee, not my grocery bill or my gym membership. I need healthy food to keep my body running properly and I work out to keep my body in the shape it should be in. I figure if I take care of my body, since it’s the only one i have, i decrease my chances of having serious health problems in the future. It seems like sound logic. And yet, our government does not share this sentiment. Rather than trying to prevent emergency situations that typically cost an arm and a leg in drugs, doctor fees and emergency services, we let them get to that point. One of the many things cut by this government was chiropractic care and massage therapy. Two, relatively cheap and convenient ways to keep people healthier, help control stress levels that often lead to cardiac and blood pressure problems, and prevent future skeletal and muscle problems that could evolve into more serious issues like arthritis and advanced scoliosis. Adding to this the front line workers in our hospitals will become less educated about their positions and therefore more likely to commit errors and overlook important details; things that in my mind would only create more unnecessary emergency situations. It would seem to me, and I think many Canadians, not just Albertans, that when dealing with life and death situations, the margin for error is slim to none – at least that’s what I would expect if it was my life on the table.

Needless to say I have become ashamed of our health care system. I am ashamed that my step-mom is better served down south where she is paying out of her own wallet because the government will not pay from theirs. This is not they system that Tommy Douglas first envisioned when he introduced health care in Saskatchewan and it is not the system I want for my children. Our government can do better and they should be doing better. It would be so much easier to save money if the government invested in the health of Albertans rather than dealing with the health problems of it’s population. Imagine a system where a bypass surgery can be avoided by changing diet and introducing exercise to an unhealthy patient all because it was noticed early enough by a competent hospital staff that had enough time to properly deal with its patients. I don’t want to sound like John Lennon here, but imagine how much money that would save.

Now I know the health care received by the members of my beloved Montreal Canadiens is top notch – the best money can buy. These players take impeccable care of their bodies because their livelihood depends on it. But to compliment this, their employers, the Canadiens, provide them with the best in preventative care and if something does happen, the best in emergency care. This makes good business sense if you own the Montreal Canadiens because you want your best players to be as healthy as they can be for an entire season. It’s simple economics: healthy players makes for a better team and a happy fan base. Unfortunately Alberta is not a professional sports team and we do not receive this level of care. One would think it would be good business sense too keep your population healthy and working, paying taxes and spending money to support the testy economy, but I am not an economist, just a very unimpressed observer that wishes she was on a professional sports team so her sore back wouldn’t cost her any money. For as long as I stay in Alberta, my back will go on hurting until I can barely walk and need a new spine, then the health care system will deal with me.

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Tags: alberta, canada, health care, hospitals

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 12:06 am and is filed under health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.