Now in Ontario, it used to be that hospitals would fund outpatient clinics such as cardiac rehab, pre-op for hip and knee physio services, as well as chiropodist clinics and pain clinics, well due to budget constraints, many hospitals last year closed these clinics because the hospitals aren't allowed to run deficits and therefore have decided to reduce services to balance the budget.
Well what's the big deal right? I mean these services are still offered in the community right? Well, yes at a price... the outpatient physio cost 50-90$/session, that means if you need to go even twice per week, that is 100$/week. It's not a big deal if the person is more than 65 or less than 20.
How can the gov fund surgeries to fix knees and hips and bypass, but then not fund rehab? What is the point to get the person to survive, if that person will not be able to get walk again or will not be able to go back to work?
Well what's the big deal right? I mean these services are still offered in the community right? Well, yes at a price... the outpatient physio cost 50-90$/session, that means if you need to go even twice per week, that is 100$/week. It's not a big deal if the person is more than 65 or less than 20.
How can the gov fund surgeries to fix knees and hips and bypass, but then not fund rehab? What is the point to get the person to survive, if that person will not be able to get walk again or will not be able to go back to work?
I do have personal experience, since we lost our insurance because of cost-savings at work and had to pay $700 for 1 tooth (2 hours of work), and another $500 for another tooth, just this year. In addition I was able to convince my family member very reluctantly to go to physio since the mentioned family member could not walk without pain and the injury wasn't healing, cost?300 for 5 sessions. Total cost for past 6 months? $2000 for 3 people.
Now I know, that there are limited funds but if the gov has an extra 2 billion to fund the G20 Summit and give hospital executes 700,000/year, why does it not have an extra 200, 000 to help people recover after heart problems?
Now for any Americans reading this, yes our health care system is far from perfect and lots of services are slowly becoming privatized, which definitely is not positive, yes it is still probably a bit better since emergency service is still 'free' although I would only recommend going to emerg if you're really sick since the wait otherwise is 8 hours.
It is just hard, since I know most of the jobs that will be available when I graduate will be in private practice, and I just feel extremely sad that a lot of people that can benefit from these services will not come in because they can't afford it.
Anyway...sorry about the rant, I promise I will have a positive post eventually! Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Now I know, that there are limited funds but if the gov has an extra 2 billion to fund the G20 Summit and give hospital executes 700,000/year, why does it not have an extra 200, 000 to help people recover after heart problems?
Now for any Americans reading this, yes our health care system is far from perfect and lots of services are slowly becoming privatized, which definitely is not positive, yes it is still probably a bit better since emergency service is still 'free' although I would only recommend going to emerg if you're really sick since the wait otherwise is 8 hours.
It is just hard, since I know most of the jobs that will be available when I graduate will be in private practice, and I just feel extremely sad that a lot of people that can benefit from these services will not come in because they can't afford it.
Anyway...sorry about the rant, I promise I will have a positive post eventually! Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
Really? I always heard Canada had socialized health care. Looks like your socialized stuff doesn't count for much, eh? As much as people complain about the health care system over here, I have to give it credit for being very affordable. Doctors visits cost about the equivalent of $2-$5 depending on what kind of doc you're seeing, hospitals are free and most prescriptions are 85% subsidized by the government. The downside of this is that doctors tend to proscribe the cheaper alternative to everything (which is why penicillin is still the antibiotic of choice, which sucks for people like me who are allergic to it - the alternatives available here aren't very advanced either and tend to kill my stomach - lucky for me I don't get sick often.) plus you constantly need to be proving you actually need the stuff because the government needs to justify paying for it. It's still a pretty good system tho since for all those years I was on continuous asthma drugs, I was paying about $150 per year out of pocket as opposed to over a thousand that my parents paid for me as a kid (with insurance) in the US.
ReplyDeleteOnly now noticed your comment! Am not very adept at using blogger yet!
ReplyDeleteThe difference is how much docs and medical professionals are paid there and here. Here, and in the US, an average doc makes 250K whereas in Israel docs only make about 50-100K. Another difference is the drug companies in US spend a lot of money marketing and theoretically developing new drugs and therefore charge a lot more for the brand name drugs, but in Israel, like you mentioned they give cheap generic versions instead of really expensive specialized drugs.
The system is better, because they can afford to have more doctors and therefore more care for the people. To give an example, in the US, a visit to a family doctor without insurance for 20 min is $200, whereas in Israel, that is how much the doc would make in a day after seeing 30+ patients instead of 1.
Here in Canada, the family doc get's $30/visit from the gov, and the incentive is for the doc to see as many patients as possible, so each appointment is 10 minutes, so the doc would see 6 patients and therefore makes also about $200/hour. The problem with the system is that a person's problem is not solved in 5-10min unless the person tells the doctor what the problem is and what meds they need for it, which is what most people are now doing.