Canada may have socialized medicine, but that doesn’t mean everyone in the Great White North who enters their Royal Canadian Mounted Emergency Room is hastily attended to. In fact, sometimes it’s just the opposite.
Recently a man from Winnipeg, a generally civilized area of Canada, died after spending 34 hours in the waiting room having not even been assessed by a triage nurse.
The death, which officials found could have been prevented by a simple catheter change and antibiotics, has prompted the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to institute some measures to insure that such an event will not occur in the future. Included amongst the changes are an electronic registration system that makes sure all patients are signed in before entering the waiting room, and a requirement for emergency room staff to speak directly with waiting room patients at least once every four hours.
While opponents of socialized health care will no doubt see this as an argument for the privatization of health care, it should be noted that this sort of thing never happens in Guelph or Saskatoon. It has happened before, however–even in more developed countries, like Texas– so back off, Obama health-policy haters; it’s gonna be alright.
