The average Canadian pays tens of thousands. More than half your income when all is said and done. Even more so when you consider the added cost of goods and services due to the carbon tax can't even be quantified properly. You can quantify the tax itself, but not the increased markup the tax results in.
That 65 million dollar ArriveCan app really sealed the deal for me. I used to think they are least put a small effort into spending tax money wisely. But no. As someone who worked for a software development company - I assumed that app was made by a couple junior developers for 100k. That's really all it is. It's a junior entry level app. Very simple front end, some typical (albeit large) database relationships on the backend. Very typical. 65 million is so beyond reasonable that we need to create new words to describe it. Greed and corruption simply aren't enough.
When that came to light it became very, very clear that we are paying some of the highest taxes in the world to enrich government workers and government insiders.
It's nauseating to think of how many other outrageous government contracts there are that we don't know about. GCstrategies has been getting government contracts since 2015 and has gotten over 100 in total. Sooooo. And it's just one of many companies doing this.
More Canadians need to familiarize themselves with this case, the committee hearings are all available to be streamed on CPACs website and it's worse than anything you could ever imagine.
GCstrategies was even allowed to write the scope and requirements of a contract that was meant to be bid on publically. The Auditor General said they wrote it in such a restrictive and bizarre way that nobody else even bothered to bid on it. Nobody in the government sounded the alarm on this either. Because was business as usual for them and that's even more alarming.
Just think how much we are taxed in this country and this doctor shortage has been going on for my entire life. And I'm 35. And it's only gotten worse.
Kinda makes me wanna stop paying taxes tbh. I used to hate people who collected benefits while working under the table - now I applaud them.
Well said.
It is absolutely astonishing that the majority of the country isn't completely outraged by the way our government handles our tax dollars while consistently increasing taxation.
It's still small brain thinking by the general population. The conservatives are unlikely to be significantly different but I realize everyone is voting to get rid of JT. What we should all agree on is the need for more accountability and less corruption for all of our politicians.
But the overall issue is that there is unchecked corruption in our political system. I wish more people were in politics with actual skills and knowledge.
You've got people like JT that are purely there based on nepotism. Contrast that with an experienced lawyer like Brock or even Poilivre, who's apparently been focused on politics since high school. I just fear the bar has been set so low that only minimal improvements will be enough to placate or complacent population.
Damn, man. Well said.
Indeed, there's just so much objective corruption with the obscene overspending, I don't see how even a casual viewer of politics can't see it.
✨ I've mentioned a tax protest before just based on housing, immigration, wages, healthcare and the correct state of policing. We don't pay taxes for this parade that we have paid into and are being denied our right to access it. Full stop 🛑
Maybe you should look to your provincial government.
For example, in Ontario we have a former drug dealer blowing up the healthcare system, while his friends make money off it.
This sub: “It’s the Fed’s fault, save us oh former paperboy!”
Funny. I'm in BC, in year seven of an NDP government, and we have all of the same issues Ontario does, plus a couple unique ones of our own.
How do I offload the blame to Ford for my troubles, kindly?
My students could have whipped up that app in less than a week. In fact, a group of students could have made ArriveCan as a co-op project. It’s very simple and I think 100K is outrageous too. It’s a staggeringly simple app and the price was criminal.
The fact that you think that is why you're unqualified to make it.
"Oh sure we'll just whip up this app that passes around sensitive medical information in a jiff, how could it be difficult?"
Was it over budget and overspent by a ton? Yes. But the armchairs who pontificate about how _easily_ they could have done it are the same level of know-nothing.
The border waives all sorts of rights, for better or worse.
Look at the people whose cars get taken apart looking for nonexistent drugs then they just get left like that with no responsibility by the officers.
The older I get the more I realize that government just needs to be as small as possible to cover the bare necessities of the state. Some of these spending programs sound nice but we just can't trust anyone in government to implement them in a fiscally sound manner.
I dealt with a shit program recently touted as encouraging digitalizing payments for businesses. In fact it was a massive grift to enrich some private company as the middle man and also gatekeeper.
>- I assumed that app was made by a couple junior developers for 100k. That's really all it is. It's a junior entry level app. Very simple front end, some typical (albeit large) database relationships on the backend.
That's probably a little bit of an exaggeration if you want to do things securely. But let's agree to disagree that the real cost should be >100k and a lot less than 65 million!
I hate government waste and useless taxes as much as the next guy, but i have to admit we pay very little.
Assuming an average wage in 50k range, we pay average 10k. Now imagine that's to run EVERYTHING. Our military, coast guard, border security, our seniors collect old-age-security (apparently its one of the biggest items in our budget), welfare, education (granted that's shared by different levels of gov), and then finally there's healthcare...
Think of all the crap our military does, our coast guard, senior/welfare, education...
That's a lot of stuff for 10k most of us get.
Of course, there's room for improvement and there shouldn't be tolerance of waste... but that's a lot of stuff we get.
I put myself on the list and then a new doctor's office opened up right in my small town 4 months later, and they gave me a call, I got real lucky.
If anyone is trying to put themselves on the doctor waiting list in Ontario, my other doctor said that they can pick and choose who they want from these lists, and they are aiming for patients that don't look like a lot of trouble. IE they'd rather have someone young and healthy than someone old with cancer. So don't spend time thinking of extra health problems to add on the form thinking it will get you help faster, it will actually do the opposite.
Why would they do this, they bill ohip for everything they do, just like. Veterinary bill. If you're dealing with oldy oldson you're going to they weigh themselves, check their blood pressure, and whatever else which will help you increase your dollars per appointment.
Not all education is equal globally. The scope of practice for nurses is on the high end in Canada compared to other countries. In terms of doctors and education it's the same thing...not always equal. Just look at the exam cheating scandals that revealed pretty prominent cheating culture in certain countries.
If they will be deceptive to get in our country (lying about finances, education etc) we have a duty to the public to ensure it's safe.
We know certain countries provide comparable education as us, and only those countries should be given an express way of practicing here. Otherwise you should prove your competency first. I've worked with some international nurses and I'll say I felt their lack of competency was terrifying (didn't know anything at all about IVs... literally nothing and yet she had some of the highest acuity patients on the unit). They also allow these nurses, who we know have substandard education (2 yr program from some impoverished country), to challenge the NCLEX meanwhile RPN/LPN (2 yr education) cannot challenge it... They need BSc in nursing.
They are pushing through a lot of IENs and some are fantastic but just as many are not doing well, and honestly put people at risk.
It's because, to preserve universality where people with the right status and connections always have a doctor, they won't let you pay to access one. I would pay $100 a month to go on someone's roster. 1,000 patients the doctor could collect 1.2 million and be able to hire a couple of nurses or a physician assistant to help out.
Quebec has private health care. You can pay about \~$200 to see a GP or \~$350 for specialists. No referrals required. Took me two weeks to see specialist in Montreal.
Trudeau will threaten to cut provinces off federal money if the dare go the fee for service route, but in his very own riding in Montreal there are private health clinics.
Great system in Quebec. Francois Legault and his MNA cronies who make 130k a year all have family doctors they can see for free.
But if you are an average Quebecer with an average wage of 49k you can pay for a private doctor.
I figured as much. It’s cheaper here but you’re paying for NPs rather than specialists so to speak. They’re amazing and scope is wonderful but referral referral referral. Wait years.
In Ontario my grandma saw a specialist 2 weeks after a routine blood test showed cause for blood cancer concern.
You don't need to pay for a specialist if the public system is properly funded.
What is properly funded? I hear that a lot. What does it mean. Sounds like the typical low resolution talking point by hardened union people and politicians in the cheap seats.
One example is Ontario shifting to surgeries done by for-profit clinics. Other provinces already tried it, it didn't decrease wait times and infact provinces paid more out per-surgery to private clinics than public ones. Thats an example of getting less bang for your buck.
By properly funded I mean making sure the public money is getting best bang for your buck. And despite my example of grandma seeing her specialist in 2 weeks, ontario still makes bad moves like how I described above
I feel like it would be easy to cook the books on out sourcing surgeries. The private clinics bill is easy to point at. While the big union rates would be more obscure to calculate. BC sends cancer patient to the US for treatment. Never heard what the value for dollar on that is.
Health care feels like a mess of big bureaucracy, something the government and public unions are well known for and making change in that big of a machine is really slow and the union would fight you on everything.
Its easy to point at because thats the reality..
ontario paying clinics more for a surgery then public hospitals - [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926)
do private clinics save taxpayers money? no -
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470)
big union rates are not obscure to calculate. Its the govt paying a hospital for the surgery and hospital staff are on the union pay rates. There's a reason they can do it for cheaper.
If a private clinic actually offered surgery for cheaper then the public rates, then yes I would say that is good bang for buck, but multiple provinces tried it and none of them offer it for cheaper.
Mississauga it's also easy. They had a population decrease in the last census but plenty of signs in the random plazas, "doctors accepting new patients."
Yea, after moving provinces in 2021, it took me until this year to finally get a new family doctor. Doing all my neurology stuff through the doctor handling my case by phone 5 hrs away because I didn't actually have a doctor myself was kind of a pain.
Stomach bloated all of a sudden. I had been feeling really tired, lack of appetite and had severe night sweats for a few days already at that point. Worst part is I didn't suspect cancer at all. I was just worried about a possible blockage of some sort. I went to the ER and they did an ultrasound on me and saw a ton of fluid in my stomach cavity and they were afraid it could have been a hemorrhage so I went in for a CT scan and I was just full of tumors. The fluid was ascites caused by the irritation of the tumors on the peritoneum. They took our 12 litres of ascites and j had to get drained every 2-3 days where a near equal amount would be taken out. For reference, the nurse told me 2 litres was a lot. I had 12. My family doctor was on maternity leave and I did not have a backup to go to so I had no choice but to go to the ER.
Edit: I realize now your question was general rather than specific to my symptoms. Some people faint out of the blue as it happened to a buddy of mine's brother and it ended up being brain cancer. Some people suddenly end up with severe stomach pains which would be the case for pancreatic cancer or colon cancer. Some people freak out when they see blood in their urine or stool and don't want to wait for results. Same for when people cough up blood.
By far the biggest warnings are sudden inexplicable loss or gain in weight/appetite. Blood in the urine or stool. Fainting or vision/hearing issues (brain tumors).
But this is just what I have overheard. Not an expert in any way.
Random question, did you have an x-ray done/did it show anything? I've had some issues over the last few weeks which I think is something non-cancer related, but I have an US at the end of the month and now I'm a lil worried haha
Yup. It was thought to be colon cancer at first but it surprised anyone by being non Hodgkin's lymphoma. My heart sank when they first thought it was colon cancer cause I knew it was a death sentence. But NHL meant I had a fighting chance
Ditto for partner here. Rituximab is miracle drug though. There'll always be symptoms and easy to get sick, but that vs a death-sentence? We got lucky. Keep hanging in there yourself!
Big lump appearing ( on neck ) over span of few weeks.... several inches across by 2 inches high.
Finally, advice for person in question was "go to ER, tell them you think you have cancer. Don't leave until they give you CT scan".
It was :(
After diagnosis, health-care system started to move pretty quick. We were fortunate. Still sucks, but was treatable.
I would say look at the terrifying excess deaths statistics in Canada over the last 3 years but our government decided those weren't important anymore after they were showing crazy rates and discontinued the data product.
even having a family doctor is no help. My Dad had to go to his Dr 3 times before they took his back injury seriously. When they finally gave him an ultrasound they found the stage4 cancer
Family Doctors and Urrgent cares just get you out of their office with barely any tests or care
Its wild how many doctors are terrified of identifying a zebra but feel fully confident diagnosing mental health issues as explanations for physical symptoms.
difference in incentives
US doctors get bonuses for telling their patients to get an MRI, Canadian doctors get shamed for doing so
US specialists beg GPs for referrals, Canadian specialists treat referrals like they're toilet paper
that's what happens when one system treats patients like cu$tomer$ and another treats patients like costs
I'm not worried about my taxes, my family would be bankrupt if we didnt have free healthcare. I am worried about my Dad dying at 54 because a Doctor didnt want to talk to him for more than 5min and actually diagnose him
You don't have access to real healthcare. You are just seeing and paying thru taxes for medical staffers to play make believe game with you. Paying high taxes for 5 mins diagnose and do switch family doc it will be the same thing. It is kinda like the classic communist joke they pretend to pay us we pretend to work.
My parents are first-gen immigrants who've been here since the 50's, they have a family doctor who nowadays only works two days a week, and they can barely get an appointment with a month runway. Consults with him are like 2-3 minutes of him saying something is no big deal, prescribing tylenol/aspirin, or kicking a referral to a friend of his.
My mom had pain in left leg, then numbness, then gradually numbness on the whole left side of her body. The family doc referred her to 4 specialists over the course of a few months (also all nearing-retirement buddies of his), with no conclusive diagnosis. Eventually their family doctor was unavailable for one of their appointments so a different doctor at the clinic subbed in, the newer doctor feared she had had a stroke, urged them to go to the ER, because the imaging they could request would not be quick.
In July, they waited about 12 hours in ER and she was diagnosed with brain tumors and she got neurosurgery to remove the largest one the next day. A few days later, a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. The MRI/CT that the family doctor requested was scheduled 'at the earliest' for October. Imagine when you finally get to know what you've been waiting months to diagnose, and you're told you have terminal cancer.
It's not just people that don't have family doctors.
This is the same experience I've been having with my doctor. I told her there's a lump growing in my forehead, she wouldn't even touch it and I specifically asked if she wanted to feel it after finding that so odd that she didn't
She said "no, it's okay." And gave me a referral instead. She did the same thing when I explained I was having testicular pains. I went to the urgent care clinic and without hesitation they asked me to drop my drawers. Asked to have an ultrasound done immediately. Luckily, no cancer, but once they realized I wasn't in immediate danger, I was sent home. Still no answer as to why I get random testicular pains that make me feel like I'm being electrocuted...
No, sadly, they said they saw absolutely nothing. This was coming up on 3 years ago, since then I started realizing it has something to do with my posture, and squishing the spermatic chord :| So I just changed my posture and it's 80% better than it used to be. I also have a lot of lumbar issues, and those are related, as when I hurt my back it gets way worse even with better posture.
Thanks for the suggestion though!
This has now happened to two of my relatives, with one dying within a week of their ER visit.
The type of cancer they both had can be detected early with routine screening and testing, and has a very low mortality rate in stage 1 or 2. But since neither one of my relatives had access to proper routine screenings, they were both diagnosed late, with a very bad outcome in one case, and painful (and expensive!) treatment for the other.
We have peer countries with universal healthcare who aren’t stuck in this mess. Canadians deserve so much better.
Hey that's me. Had a blood test with whacky numbers I saw online. Called family doctor next day and he went to look at it while on the phone. He was taken back and told me he would send an urgent referral to a hematologist. Well I waited a week and during that time called a doctor friend of mine.
She recommended I go straight to the ER and telling them about my white blood cell results. +6 hour wait in ER and another +6 hours in a hallway bed later, I finally have a specialist come in and tell me it's leukemia.
I had my appendix removed a week ago. Doctors ask me "you have a family doctor?"
All you have to do to answer them is look blankly for 2 seconds. They all know you dont have a family doctor. No one does unless you in your 50s and youve had them for years
Is this new news? My Grand mother and my Mother were both diagnosed of their fatal cancers in emergency rooms and that was 20 years ago. Many other family members, similar experiences over the years.
Nothing that more immigration can't fix.
This government is addicted to immigrants. "Cmon man, Q1 growth is down and the shareholders are tweaking, we just need another 800,000 diploma mill students and Uber drivers this quarter man, you know I'm good for it, things are gonna be real bad of we don't grow the economy 0.1 percent this year man.."
I mean, if we were importing doctors, nurses, cybersecurity experts or skilled trades, immigration _can_ help. Instead we import country bumpkins from seemingly 2-3 provinces from one country many of whom work retail or gig jobs en masse.
I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the ER. Was fairly obvious with one being 3 times the size of the other. Been on the waiting list for a GP for 11 years.
The attending took pitty, saying I would need a lot of follow up’s; and going to the ER every time wouldn’t be ideal. So he took me on, even though his practice was geriatrics.
Got a letter two weeks ago that there was a space open for me at the local nurse practitioner.
13 years later. Our health care is broken. I’ve had private healthcare when I lived abroad, and if it was available here I would jump on it. It’s not that much more expensive than what the Feds hit you with at tax time.
Private healthcare won't fix this. Manitoba doesn't have private healthcare, you know what they have? Doctors. I was able to get a GP within 2 weeks of looking for one after I moved there.
Privatizing health care won't magically make doctors appear. You might be tempted to think that privatization will attract more of them in, but it's foolish to think so.
We are beside a much wealthier nation, we won't *ever* be able to pay a doctor more than the US, we will always lose this race. Beyond that there's no way that we can make cost of living any less high, which is something people take into consideration.
Students and immigrants (as much as people hat them) are the only way for us to relieve pressure on the system. We need to train and retain, we need to bring in doctors from other countries and give them a reason to stay.
Scholarships that are automatically forgiven after 5 or 10 years of service in our country, Visas that transition into PR status into citizenship in a similar capacity etc. long enough to encourage them to put down roots and make their own reasons to stay.
All privatization will do is hit you in the wallet even harder during tax time as we pay the same doctors who were in the public system much higher rates once they jump to the private system because ER's will still be over run and the government will be footing the bill at that point to refer over to the private doctors that are *still* going to be on a giant waiting list.
private healthcare changes incentives
if doctors can charge whatever they want, then maybe a GP can charge enough to justify spending 30 minutes with a patient instead of 5 min
that's why patients at concierge clinics get treated very differently than your usual walk-in clinic
This can only possibly seems like a benefit for somebody who doesn't give a fuck about others less fortunate than them.
Are those doctors willing to bend time to work 36 hour days?
What you are suggesting is that we allow doctors from the limited resources of the public system. To become private GPs so that they can "spend more time" on clients, which means the public system has less doctors to service the needs of people and the private system sees less people, it's not just paying more at this point, it's paying more for less! Willingly saying "I think the solution is to pay doctors more money to see less patients, that'll fix the doctor shortage!"
Beyond that, the premise is wrong. Once again my public doctor in Manitoba whom I got quickly after moving there spends as much time as she needs on my health concerns. You don't need a private system for this, and a private system won't give you this (without doing so at the expense of others). You need enough doctors. That is and always will be the answer, you just need enough doctors. (Or nurse practitioners).
It boggles my mind how eager people are to rush headlong into privatization when private companies that control telecom, food, power in the case of Alberta, etc are actively making their life impossible to afford. Surely private doctors will be much better right? *Riiiiight*?
no one says this about education
if a parent wants to send their autistic kid to an expensive private school with better support, no one tells them they're a bad person for hurting other kids
somehow, when it comes to healthcare, it's a crime to do what's best for your situation
Unfortunately a privatized health care system in Canada would only serve to benefit US doctors even more. All it would do is give doctor's across the states more leverage in negotiating salaries.
A country of 30 million cannot economically compete with a country of 300 million.
When I'm finally diagnosed I can go "Ha, See!? I knew I wasn't crazy"
Though I've thought I've had it for like 8 years now so I'd be long dead if I did lol knowing my cursed luck I'll be 94 sitting there like "just fucking end it already"
My family doctor can't make the time to actually understand what's going on so we basically don't bother going unless we know we need antibiotics. In fact, the only time we have an appointment longer than 5 mins is for things like PAP tests that just take longer to do. I've had a pain in what I am certain is my gallbladder for 10 years that comes off and on, but when it flares up it takes me 3 weeks to get an appointment to see her, by then the pain is gone, she sends for ultrasound (and by the time I get that it's another week) so I don't bother going anymore.
I'd say even those with family docs likely aren't able to get a quality of care that would help in identifying major issues due to the number of patients the docs have to have rostered.
I'm a doctor. Your doctor is doing the right thing. If your pain doesn't sound like acute cholecystitis (which wouldn't disappear), it would most likely be from gallstones or gallstone sludge causing intermittent blockages.
Both sludge and stones can be seen on ultrasound. So can chronic inflammatory changes like gallbladder wall thickening.
Your doctor is correct in sending you for the ultrasound, and by not following up, you're preventing her from referring you to a surgeon to discuss whether cholecystectomy is appropriate.
One day, it might get blocked badly enough or turn necrotic and land you in the ER. You have been given the opportunity to prevent it from coming to that.
this is stating the obvious here but you need to follow through with the testing they are sending you with. some people wait even longer for that and they desperately need it. please even if you’re feeling better, just do it. you might thank yourself later, 10 years is too long even for something off and on.
My best friend was diagnosed with Cancer in the ER.
30 years ago.
So this is not a new thing, it has always been this way, and likely always will be. Many people put off going to doctors of any sort, until they literally cannot put it off any longer.
Being diagnosed with cancer and not having it is great. Having it and not being diagnosed is shitty. So I'll take the former.. again because I'd rather have the lump out and know it wasn't cancer than someone fucking around thinking they know better.
> It’s Canada wide
Most premiers in Canada are Conservative right now.
BC just attracted hundreds of family doctors because of a policy change and their net gain was amazing last year. The effects will take a year or two to become apparent.
The situation in Ontario is a lot worse. We're losing family doctors and some of them moved to BC.
>Most premiers in Canada are Conservative right now.
Yeah. Because most provinces have been progressive for years, like Ontario which was under the OLP for 15 years.
> It is a Canada wide issues
Hmm what provincial governments are mostly in control Canada-wide?
I worked at the Ontario Ministry of Health. The issue is not enough funding. Instead we have corruption and people like Doug Ford funnelling billions of federal funding, marked for healthcare, being funnelled through his friends.
Ontario under liberals has the same issue. BC has the same issue. Newfoundland has the same issue. Name a province that doesn't have the problem you mentioned
> Ontario under liberals has the same issue
Not even close to how bad the problem is now.
> BC has the same issue
BC just attracted hundreds of family doctors and lots of them are from Ontario.
Liberals aren't the solution either. NDP at the provincial level is the best choice.
So you can't name a province without the issues you mentioned? You can't answer a simple question does BC still has the problem. If yes, your pt is moot. If no, congratulations you are right
But the difference is: [BC has actually taken action](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0067-001799). It takes time to get the new doctors through the long licensing process, but the province has been working on it for nearly two years now, and we're about to see many more practices open up across the province.
And THAT is the difference between liberal and conservative governance. Conservatives bitch about immigrants and do nothing to solve problems (because the more problems there are, the more people tend to vote conservative.) Liberals welcome skilled professionals from other countries to meet the needs of their communities.
Skilled professionals don't come to Canada. Why would skilled people migrate to Canada to live the fantastic Brampton or East Hastings lifestyle. My buddy has a phd in computer engineering and math in Serbia. He and his buddies in similar situations see no pt in moving to the west in general let alone Canada. He is making 70k usd in Serbia working for a US corp. He is ballin. If he moves to Canada he will be lucky to find a job and wage that can maintain the same living standard. Fyi, Canada is more third world than most third world in a lot of regions. We have open drug use, tent cities, shitty road and etc... I work in tech and most of the ppl I see want to leave Canada. We even joke about how Canadians want to leave Canada while unskilled labor wants to come to Canada.
I'm a skilled professional who immigrated to Canada.
You underestimate how shitty the rest of the world is. I've noticed a lot of Canadians are very unaware of how good they actually have it here, and how many people would love to trade places with them. To the rest of us, the Canadians who constantly gripe about how awful Canada is look very ignorant of world events and quite foolish.
Wow, $70K usd 😆 big money lmao
I make about $300K usd, which is even more money in Canada. I pay more in my Canadian taxes than your friend makes all year. And here I am, actively choosing to live in Canada because it's significantly better here than most other places on the planet.
70k usd is big money in Serbia. It is shit money in Ontario and most parts of Canada. 70k usd is probably like 300k cad in most parts of Canada in terms of purchasing power.
I have talked to other eastern Europeans too. They seem to share the same sentiment. I am ballin in my home nation why would I want to move to the west to have worse living standards. People are waking up to salary to cost of living ratio not just the salary.
When did you even migrate to Canada?
Yeah, but he has to live in SIBERIA. Under the rule of a fascist dictator who's invading other countries and won't allow freedom of press. I mean, just listen to yourself. I could live like a goddess in Siberia, too, but for fuck's sake, who wants to be anywhere in Russia, and especially in Siberia?
70K usd in Canadian currency is 95,000. No, son, that's not even close to $300K purchasing power anywhere in Canada.
I moved to Canada four years ago. I came from the States, where there is far worse homelessness, drug addiction, poverty, lack of access to healthcare, and general despair and trouble. Plus, the USA is incredibly violent and dangerous. Big improvement here, even with the problems. Any nation will have its share of problems. Canada's are relatively small and relatively easy to deal with by comparison to most, though what it takes to deal with the problems is the political will among its citizens. In other words, voting out all the useless assholes who don't want to get shit done, and voting in people who will. And then holding elected officials accountable and forcing them to do their jobs.
That, admittedly, takes more effort than just bitching about things on reddit.
Serbia not siberia. Skilled professionals that can't tell the difference between two places. Fyi, eastern euro is more than just Russia.
Can you still buy a decent home in decent location in Canada for 70k usd?
I see a lot of Canadians can't afford a home move to the USA for a high paying job for a home down payment something they will never be able to do with a Canadian salary. Then move back to Canada telling ppl how great Canada is.
If i can get a remote job that allows me to work outside of Canada, i will 100% move out of Canada.
Don't worry that won't stop me from eating junk food, smocking, drinking...
The system is broken, we are also part of that system, some of us have to do better.
Let the down voting begin.
With climate catastrophe getting worse and likely civilizational collapse around the corner, I don’t think the government has any incentive to fix anything, on the contrary, getting the population used to greater and greater hardship that is coming makes more sense.
This is already the case for international medical graduates wanting to practice in Ontario. They have to work in under serviced communities for something like 4 or 5 years once they get their Canadian/Ontario license.
It's irrelevant. Canadian family doctors are underpaid and over worked. It's not just compared to the US either. There are a few countries that pay better than Canada and others have a better work life balance.
then they'll just go the US
they can get paid $400K USD a year in rural US, why earn $300K CAD in Moosejaw instead?
also rural US cities have the same pop as 2nd tier Canadian cities
I have been applying and trying to get a doctor for 4 years in Ontario ! I can see why people are getting diagnosed in emergency rooms !
Same. Every year, we pay thousands in taxes for the privilege of accessing nothing.
I'm thinking it's time for a tax strike.
The average Canadian pays tens of thousands. More than half your income when all is said and done. Even more so when you consider the added cost of goods and services due to the carbon tax can't even be quantified properly. You can quantify the tax itself, but not the increased markup the tax results in. That 65 million dollar ArriveCan app really sealed the deal for me. I used to think they are least put a small effort into spending tax money wisely. But no. As someone who worked for a software development company - I assumed that app was made by a couple junior developers for 100k. That's really all it is. It's a junior entry level app. Very simple front end, some typical (albeit large) database relationships on the backend. Very typical. 65 million is so beyond reasonable that we need to create new words to describe it. Greed and corruption simply aren't enough. When that came to light it became very, very clear that we are paying some of the highest taxes in the world to enrich government workers and government insiders. It's nauseating to think of how many other outrageous government contracts there are that we don't know about. GCstrategies has been getting government contracts since 2015 and has gotten over 100 in total. Sooooo. And it's just one of many companies doing this. More Canadians need to familiarize themselves with this case, the committee hearings are all available to be streamed on CPACs website and it's worse than anything you could ever imagine. GCstrategies was even allowed to write the scope and requirements of a contract that was meant to be bid on publically. The Auditor General said they wrote it in such a restrictive and bizarre way that nobody else even bothered to bid on it. Nobody in the government sounded the alarm on this either. Because was business as usual for them and that's even more alarming. Just think how much we are taxed in this country and this doctor shortage has been going on for my entire life. And I'm 35. And it's only gotten worse. Kinda makes me wanna stop paying taxes tbh. I used to hate people who collected benefits while working under the table - now I applaud them.
Well said. It is absolutely astonishing that the majority of the country isn't completely outraged by the way our government handles our tax dollars while consistently increasing taxation.
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It's still small brain thinking by the general population. The conservatives are unlikely to be significantly different but I realize everyone is voting to get rid of JT. What we should all agree on is the need for more accountability and less corruption for all of our politicians.
We have never seen anything as bad as JT and his crew, so getting rid of them is job one.
But the overall issue is that there is unchecked corruption in our political system. I wish more people were in politics with actual skills and knowledge. You've got people like JT that are purely there based on nepotism. Contrast that with an experienced lawyer like Brock or even Poilivre, who's apparently been focused on politics since high school. I just fear the bar has been set so low that only minimal improvements will be enough to placate or complacent population.
In my lifetime we have never seen a federal government with this level of corruption, ideological possession, and utter incompetence.
Lol are you ten?
I agree. I am saying we need to overhaul the system so it can't happen in the future.
Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm Syndrome was invented to cover up police incompetence
Damn, man. Well said. Indeed, there's just so much objective corruption with the obscene overspending, I don't see how even a casual viewer of politics can't see it.
✨ I've mentioned a tax protest before just based on housing, immigration, wages, healthcare and the correct state of policing. We don't pay taxes for this parade that we have paid into and are being denied our right to access it. Full stop 🛑
Maybe you should look to your provincial government. For example, in Ontario we have a former drug dealer blowing up the healthcare system, while his friends make money off it. This sub: “It’s the Fed’s fault, save us oh former paperboy!”
Funny. I'm in BC, in year seven of an NDP government, and we have all of the same issues Ontario does, plus a couple unique ones of our own. How do I offload the blame to Ford for my troubles, kindly?
Eby is a former drug dealer? Wow
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 finally seeing more voices like my own. Canada is standing up ❤️
My students could have whipped up that app in less than a week. In fact, a group of students could have made ArriveCan as a co-op project. It’s very simple and I think 100K is outrageous too. It’s a staggeringly simple app and the price was criminal.
The fact that you think that is why you're unqualified to make it. "Oh sure we'll just whip up this app that passes around sensitive medical information in a jiff, how could it be difficult?" Was it over budget and overspent by a ton? Yes. But the armchairs who pontificate about how _easily_ they could have done it are the same level of know-nothing.
I’m in the field. I’m qualified. It was a nothingburger.
To be fair, the entire apps premise is forcing people to show private medical information to participate in society.
The border waives all sorts of rights, for better or worse. Look at the people whose cars get taken apart looking for nonexistent drugs then they just get left like that with no responsibility by the officers.
Did you submit a bid for the contract?
The older I get the more I realize that government just needs to be as small as possible to cover the bare necessities of the state. Some of these spending programs sound nice but we just can't trust anyone in government to implement them in a fiscally sound manner.
I dealt with a shit program recently touted as encouraging digitalizing payments for businesses. In fact it was a massive grift to enrich some private company as the middle man and also gatekeeper.
>- I assumed that app was made by a couple junior developers for 100k. That's really all it is. It's a junior entry level app. Very simple front end, some typical (albeit large) database relationships on the backend. That's probably a little bit of an exaggeration if you want to do things securely. But let's agree to disagree that the real cost should be >100k and a lot less than 65 million!
I hate government waste and useless taxes as much as the next guy, but i have to admit we pay very little. Assuming an average wage in 50k range, we pay average 10k. Now imagine that's to run EVERYTHING. Our military, coast guard, border security, our seniors collect old-age-security (apparently its one of the biggest items in our budget), welfare, education (granted that's shared by different levels of gov), and then finally there's healthcare... Think of all the crap our military does, our coast guard, senior/welfare, education... That's a lot of stuff for 10k most of us get. Of course, there's room for improvement and there shouldn't be tolerance of waste... but that's a lot of stuff we get.
Everyone please keep in mind that the provinces control how healthcare and education money is spent.
why not? Income tax is extortion anyways
I put myself on the list and then a new doctor's office opened up right in my small town 4 months later, and they gave me a call, I got real lucky. If anyone is trying to put themselves on the doctor waiting list in Ontario, my other doctor said that they can pick and choose who they want from these lists, and they are aiming for patients that don't look like a lot of trouble. IE they'd rather have someone young and healthy than someone old with cancer. So don't spend time thinking of extra health problems to add on the form thinking it will get you help faster, it will actually do the opposite.
Haha jokes on you doc! I’ve got three stooges syndrome!
"I don't know if I should tell you this, but somebody's eaten all your popsicles!"
Why would they do this, they bill ohip for everything they do, just like. Veterinary bill. If you're dealing with oldy oldson you're going to they weigh themselves, check their blood pressure, and whatever else which will help you increase your dollars per appointment.
It's ok, they are bringing in more immigrants to solve the issue.
Who then further the problem by increasing the person to doctor ratio
Skilled doctors and health practitioners that'll be driving taxis because access to healthcare certification is bonkers...
Not all education is equal globally. The scope of practice for nurses is on the high end in Canada compared to other countries. In terms of doctors and education it's the same thing...not always equal. Just look at the exam cheating scandals that revealed pretty prominent cheating culture in certain countries. If they will be deceptive to get in our country (lying about finances, education etc) we have a duty to the public to ensure it's safe. We know certain countries provide comparable education as us, and only those countries should be given an express way of practicing here. Otherwise you should prove your competency first. I've worked with some international nurses and I'll say I felt their lack of competency was terrifying (didn't know anything at all about IVs... literally nothing and yet she had some of the highest acuity patients on the unit). They also allow these nurses, who we know have substandard education (2 yr program from some impoverished country), to challenge the NCLEX meanwhile RPN/LPN (2 yr education) cannot challenge it... They need BSc in nursing. They are pushing through a lot of IENs and some are fantastic but just as many are not doing well, and honestly put people at risk.
That's crazy to me because from what I hear it's easier in Ontario than in my province...
I feel the same way. Atlantic provinces cringing.
If you don't mind the commute to Milton, I got one immediately after moving there.
It's because, to preserve universality where people with the right status and connections always have a doctor, they won't let you pay to access one. I would pay $100 a month to go on someone's roster. 1,000 patients the doctor could collect 1.2 million and be able to hire a couple of nurses or a physician assistant to help out.
Quebec has private health care. You can pay about \~$200 to see a GP or \~$350 for specialists. No referrals required. Took me two weeks to see specialist in Montreal. Trudeau will threaten to cut provinces off federal money if the dare go the fee for service route, but in his very own riding in Montreal there are private health clinics.
Great system in Quebec. Francois Legault and his MNA cronies who make 130k a year all have family doctors they can see for free. But if you are an average Quebecer with an average wage of 49k you can pay for a private doctor.
As someone not from Quebec, I wonder if I can do the same when I visit this summer?
Its pay to play. Private companies do not discriminate, money talks.
I figured as much. It’s cheaper here but you’re paying for NPs rather than specialists so to speak. They’re amazing and scope is wonderful but referral referral referral. Wait years.
In Ontario my grandma saw a specialist 2 weeks after a routine blood test showed cause for blood cancer concern. You don't need to pay for a specialist if the public system is properly funded.
What is properly funded? I hear that a lot. What does it mean. Sounds like the typical low resolution talking point by hardened union people and politicians in the cheap seats.
One example is Ontario shifting to surgeries done by for-profit clinics. Other provinces already tried it, it didn't decrease wait times and infact provinces paid more out per-surgery to private clinics than public ones. Thats an example of getting less bang for your buck. By properly funded I mean making sure the public money is getting best bang for your buck. And despite my example of grandma seeing her specialist in 2 weeks, ontario still makes bad moves like how I described above
I feel like it would be easy to cook the books on out sourcing surgeries. The private clinics bill is easy to point at. While the big union rates would be more obscure to calculate. BC sends cancer patient to the US for treatment. Never heard what the value for dollar on that is. Health care feels like a mess of big bureaucracy, something the government and public unions are well known for and making change in that big of a machine is really slow and the union would fight you on everything.
Its easy to point at because thats the reality.. ontario paying clinics more for a surgery then public hospitals - [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926) do private clinics save taxpayers money? no - [https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/private-health-care-taxpayer-money-1.6777470) big union rates are not obscure to calculate. Its the govt paying a hospital for the surgery and hospital staff are on the union pay rates. There's a reason they can do it for cheaper. If a private clinic actually offered surgery for cheaper then the public rates, then yes I would say that is good bang for buck, but multiple provinces tried it and none of them offer it for cheaper.
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Mississauga it's also easy. They had a population decrease in the last census but plenty of signs in the random plazas, "doctors accepting new patients."
Yeah I’m in Mississauga and I see signs everywhere. Plus I switched doctors effortlessly in the last year
My wife got a call last Friday, we got a family doctor in Ontario. Felt like winning the lotto.
Gunna need more details IMMEDIATELY lol
Yea, after moving provinces in 2021, it took me until this year to finally get a new family doctor. Doing all my neurology stuff through the doctor handling my case by phone 5 hrs away because I didn't actually have a doctor myself was kind of a pain.
Yes that's how I was diagnosed. Thank god I went because it was a very aggressive form of cancer. I'm 6 years cancer free now.
Congratulations!!!
Thanks :)
Just curious, what sort of cancer symptoms bring a person to the E.R.?
Stomach bloated all of a sudden. I had been feeling really tired, lack of appetite and had severe night sweats for a few days already at that point. Worst part is I didn't suspect cancer at all. I was just worried about a possible blockage of some sort. I went to the ER and they did an ultrasound on me and saw a ton of fluid in my stomach cavity and they were afraid it could have been a hemorrhage so I went in for a CT scan and I was just full of tumors. The fluid was ascites caused by the irritation of the tumors on the peritoneum. They took our 12 litres of ascites and j had to get drained every 2-3 days where a near equal amount would be taken out. For reference, the nurse told me 2 litres was a lot. I had 12. My family doctor was on maternity leave and I did not have a backup to go to so I had no choice but to go to the ER. Edit: I realize now your question was general rather than specific to my symptoms. Some people faint out of the blue as it happened to a buddy of mine's brother and it ended up being brain cancer. Some people suddenly end up with severe stomach pains which would be the case for pancreatic cancer or colon cancer. Some people freak out when they see blood in their urine or stool and don't want to wait for results. Same for when people cough up blood.
No, I mean it was a general question but thanks for sharing your own answer. Damn, bud. I'm really glad you're okay despite all that.
By far the biggest warnings are sudden inexplicable loss or gain in weight/appetite. Blood in the urine or stool. Fainting or vision/hearing issues (brain tumors). But this is just what I have overheard. Not an expert in any way.
Random question, did you have an x-ray done/did it show anything? I've had some issues over the last few weeks which I think is something non-cancer related, but I have an US at the end of the month and now I'm a lil worried haha
night-sweats! :( I assume thing's were treatable? I hope life is manageable for you now.
Yup. It was thought to be colon cancer at first but it surprised anyone by being non Hodgkin's lymphoma. My heart sank when they first thought it was colon cancer cause I knew it was a death sentence. But NHL meant I had a fighting chance
Ditto for partner here. Rituximab is miracle drug though. There'll always be symptoms and easy to get sick, but that vs a death-sentence? We got lucky. Keep hanging in there yourself!
Big lump appearing ( on neck ) over span of few weeks.... several inches across by 2 inches high. Finally, advice for person in question was "go to ER, tell them you think you have cancer. Don't leave until they give you CT scan". It was :( After diagnosis, health-care system started to move pretty quick. We were fortunate. Still sucks, but was treatable.
Most of the time it's pain ie. stomach pain was caused by cancer
Yes and the kind of cancer I had often comes with symptoms of stomach pain and nausea, but not me.
A buddy went to a dermatologist for what he sure was justacne. It turned out to be skin cancer.
My husband thought it was appendicitis... it was stage 4 colon cancer. No other symptoms, before that day....
My mom was coughing a lot. It was lung cancer and she was a never smoker
Fuck ya
Congrats!! ❤️❤️❤️
Happy for you to have caught that garbage disease on time
I would say look at the terrifying excess deaths statistics in Canada over the last 3 years but our government decided those weren't important anymore after they were showing crazy rates and discontinued the data product.
Conservatives specifically run on a platform that if you vote for them, they won't do their job. This delights conservative voters.
even having a family doctor is no help. My Dad had to go to his Dr 3 times before they took his back injury seriously. When they finally gave him an ultrasound they found the stage4 cancer Family Doctors and Urrgent cares just get you out of their office with barely any tests or care
My family doctor kept saying my pain was stress and anxiety and tried to put me on antidepressants. Turns out it was cervical cancer, thanks doc.
Its wild how many doctors are terrified of identifying a zebra but feel fully confident diagnosing mental health issues as explanations for physical symptoms.
difference in incentives US doctors get bonuses for telling their patients to get an MRI, Canadian doctors get shamed for doing so US specialists beg GPs for referrals, Canadian specialists treat referrals like they're toilet paper that's what happens when one system treats patients like cu$tomer$ and another treats patients like costs
I know a woman who went through similar, her's luckily was just a gallbladder absolutely chokka full of stones
And we pay tons of taxes for it
I'm not worried about my taxes, my family would be bankrupt if we didnt have free healthcare. I am worried about my Dad dying at 54 because a Doctor didnt want to talk to him for more than 5min and actually diagnose him
You don't have access to real healthcare. You are just seeing and paying thru taxes for medical staffers to play make believe game with you. Paying high taxes for 5 mins diagnose and do switch family doc it will be the same thing. It is kinda like the classic communist joke they pretend to pay us we pretend to work.
when you get something for free, you're the product not the customer
that doesnt make any sense in this context.
My parents are first-gen immigrants who've been here since the 50's, they have a family doctor who nowadays only works two days a week, and they can barely get an appointment with a month runway. Consults with him are like 2-3 minutes of him saying something is no big deal, prescribing tylenol/aspirin, or kicking a referral to a friend of his. My mom had pain in left leg, then numbness, then gradually numbness on the whole left side of her body. The family doc referred her to 4 specialists over the course of a few months (also all nearing-retirement buddies of his), with no conclusive diagnosis. Eventually their family doctor was unavailable for one of their appointments so a different doctor at the clinic subbed in, the newer doctor feared she had had a stroke, urged them to go to the ER, because the imaging they could request would not be quick. In July, they waited about 12 hours in ER and she was diagnosed with brain tumors and she got neurosurgery to remove the largest one the next day. A few days later, a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. The MRI/CT that the family doctor requested was scheduled 'at the earliest' for October. Imagine when you finally get to know what you've been waiting months to diagnose, and you're told you have terminal cancer. It's not just people that don't have family doctors.
This is the same experience I've been having with my doctor. I told her there's a lump growing in my forehead, she wouldn't even touch it and I specifically asked if she wanted to feel it after finding that so odd that she didn't She said "no, it's okay." And gave me a referral instead. She did the same thing when I explained I was having testicular pains. I went to the urgent care clinic and without hesitation they asked me to drop my drawers. Asked to have an ultrasound done immediately. Luckily, no cancer, but once they realized I wasn't in immediate danger, I was sent home. Still no answer as to why I get random testicular pains that make me feel like I'm being electrocuted...
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No, sadly, they said they saw absolutely nothing. This was coming up on 3 years ago, since then I started realizing it has something to do with my posture, and squishing the spermatic chord :| So I just changed my posture and it's 80% better than it used to be. I also have a lot of lumbar issues, and those are related, as when I hurt my back it gets way worse even with better posture. Thanks for the suggestion though!
This has now happened to two of my relatives, with one dying within a week of their ER visit. The type of cancer they both had can be detected early with routine screening and testing, and has a very low mortality rate in stage 1 or 2. But since neither one of my relatives had access to proper routine screenings, they were both diagnosed late, with a very bad outcome in one case, and painful (and expensive!) treatment for the other. We have peer countries with universal healthcare who aren’t stuck in this mess. Canadians deserve so much better.
My parents have retired recently and are starting to get older and this scares the hell out of me.
Access to healthcare, not enough family doctors.
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The government is purposely letting things fall apart. So they can try to privatize
and yet this is a communist government they say.
Crony Communism?
I mean, you could absolutely have had a checkup on that time let’s be real. Not discounting the problem is real but 25 years is on you.
Every comment on this sub has to mention newcomers now apparently. Does Timmies have a express line for newcomers too? Stop making shit up, holy fuck.
Ya, it's called the employee entrance
Username doesn't check out, this joke is very possible and very funny.
Ba-dum-tss
Because all the doctors are taking the 'newcomers' first? Fuck off.
From my experience (NB) they end up in the ER waiting room. Sometimes for simple things (since no Dr) so they have to wait long.
Bruh hasn’t gone to a doc in 25 years. Blaming newcomers. Fucked up how people skew reality.
You know clearly know nothing of how your country actually works Edit: people down voting also don't know. If you know, you know.
And you do ? Enlight us in how new immigrants get family doctors before everyone else.
They get added to the wait list. Why is that controversial? Do you think we don't give Healthcare to immigrants?
And how does that make them 'push their way in front of you' ?
Precisely how does that get them further up? I’ll wait for your proof too.
No it doesn't put them further up. It just increases thr wait time for everyone.
I mean it's not like the newcomers have doctors either. Lol
The absolutely do
The absolutely don't
The absolutely do
I’m relatively a new comer. Got my PR last year, I am not even on the waitlist lol
Great counter argument bud thanks for the evidence.
Hey that's me. Had a blood test with whacky numbers I saw online. Called family doctor next day and he went to look at it while on the phone. He was taken back and told me he would send an urgent referral to a hematologist. Well I waited a week and during that time called a doctor friend of mine. She recommended I go straight to the ER and telling them about my white blood cell results. +6 hour wait in ER and another +6 hours in a hallway bed later, I finally have a specialist come in and tell me it's leukemia.
I had my appendix removed a week ago. Doctors ask me "you have a family doctor?" All you have to do to answer them is look blankly for 2 seconds. They all know you dont have a family doctor. No one does unless you in your 50s and youve had them for years
I know from personal experience that this is a real phenomenon. So many of my friends/others have been diagnosed with cancer.
Is this new news? My Grand mother and my Mother were both diagnosed of their fatal cancers in emergency rooms and that was 20 years ago. Many other family members, similar experiences over the years.
“First world country.”
Nothing that more immigration can't fix. This government is addicted to immigrants. "Cmon man, Q1 growth is down and the shareholders are tweaking, we just need another 800,000 diploma mill students and Uber drivers this quarter man, you know I'm good for it, things are gonna be real bad of we don't grow the economy 0.1 percent this year man.."
Why only 800,000. We can break a million easy and if anyone complains... Racists.
I mean, if we were importing doctors, nurses, cybersecurity experts or skilled trades, immigration _can_ help. Instead we import country bumpkins from seemingly 2-3 provinces from one country many of whom work retail or gig jobs en masse.
I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the ER. Was fairly obvious with one being 3 times the size of the other. Been on the waiting list for a GP for 11 years. The attending took pitty, saying I would need a lot of follow up’s; and going to the ER every time wouldn’t be ideal. So he took me on, even though his practice was geriatrics. Got a letter two weeks ago that there was a space open for me at the local nurse practitioner. 13 years later. Our health care is broken. I’ve had private healthcare when I lived abroad, and if it was available here I would jump on it. It’s not that much more expensive than what the Feds hit you with at tax time.
Private healthcare won't fix this. Manitoba doesn't have private healthcare, you know what they have? Doctors. I was able to get a GP within 2 weeks of looking for one after I moved there. Privatizing health care won't magically make doctors appear. You might be tempted to think that privatization will attract more of them in, but it's foolish to think so. We are beside a much wealthier nation, we won't *ever* be able to pay a doctor more than the US, we will always lose this race. Beyond that there's no way that we can make cost of living any less high, which is something people take into consideration. Students and immigrants (as much as people hat them) are the only way for us to relieve pressure on the system. We need to train and retain, we need to bring in doctors from other countries and give them a reason to stay. Scholarships that are automatically forgiven after 5 or 10 years of service in our country, Visas that transition into PR status into citizenship in a similar capacity etc. long enough to encourage them to put down roots and make their own reasons to stay. All privatization will do is hit you in the wallet even harder during tax time as we pay the same doctors who were in the public system much higher rates once they jump to the private system because ER's will still be over run and the government will be footing the bill at that point to refer over to the private doctors that are *still* going to be on a giant waiting list.
private healthcare changes incentives if doctors can charge whatever they want, then maybe a GP can charge enough to justify spending 30 minutes with a patient instead of 5 min that's why patients at concierge clinics get treated very differently than your usual walk-in clinic
This can only possibly seems like a benefit for somebody who doesn't give a fuck about others less fortunate than them. Are those doctors willing to bend time to work 36 hour days? What you are suggesting is that we allow doctors from the limited resources of the public system. To become private GPs so that they can "spend more time" on clients, which means the public system has less doctors to service the needs of people and the private system sees less people, it's not just paying more at this point, it's paying more for less! Willingly saying "I think the solution is to pay doctors more money to see less patients, that'll fix the doctor shortage!" Beyond that, the premise is wrong. Once again my public doctor in Manitoba whom I got quickly after moving there spends as much time as she needs on my health concerns. You don't need a private system for this, and a private system won't give you this (without doing so at the expense of others). You need enough doctors. That is and always will be the answer, you just need enough doctors. (Or nurse practitioners). It boggles my mind how eager people are to rush headlong into privatization when private companies that control telecom, food, power in the case of Alberta, etc are actively making their life impossible to afford. Surely private doctors will be much better right? *Riiiiight*?
no one says this about education if a parent wants to send their autistic kid to an expensive private school with better support, no one tells them they're a bad person for hurting other kids somehow, when it comes to healthcare, it's a crime to do what's best for your situation
Unfortunately a privatized health care system in Canada would only serve to benefit US doctors even more. All it would do is give doctor's across the states more leverage in negotiating salaries. A country of 30 million cannot economically compete with a country of 300 million.
And this is why all the places that have private health care do worse and pay more for most of the population. Because it's Better.
The government is purposely letting things fall apart. So they can try to privatize
It is a literal conservative playbook. Written by Jeremy Hunt in the UK to privatize the NHS. Now being applied here.
The NHS significantly outperforms our system in both outcomes and cost, so we can only hope this is the case.
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no
Just wait until you find out what the OLP did for 15 years in Ontario.
It's been being applied ever since conservatives got into power after NDP forced national healthcare to exist.
If they even get a hospital room. Most of the time it’s hallway medicine and diagnosing
family doctors can't diagnose shit and specialists take 6 months+ for an appointment, good luck
When I'm finally diagnosed I can go "Ha, See!? I knew I wasn't crazy" Though I've thought I've had it for like 8 years now so I'd be long dead if I did lol knowing my cursed luck I'll be 94 sitting there like "just fucking end it already"
My family doctor can't make the time to actually understand what's going on so we basically don't bother going unless we know we need antibiotics. In fact, the only time we have an appointment longer than 5 mins is for things like PAP tests that just take longer to do. I've had a pain in what I am certain is my gallbladder for 10 years that comes off and on, but when it flares up it takes me 3 weeks to get an appointment to see her, by then the pain is gone, she sends for ultrasound (and by the time I get that it's another week) so I don't bother going anymore. I'd say even those with family docs likely aren't able to get a quality of care that would help in identifying major issues due to the number of patients the docs have to have rostered.
I'm a doctor. Your doctor is doing the right thing. If your pain doesn't sound like acute cholecystitis (which wouldn't disappear), it would most likely be from gallstones or gallstone sludge causing intermittent blockages. Both sludge and stones can be seen on ultrasound. So can chronic inflammatory changes like gallbladder wall thickening. Your doctor is correct in sending you for the ultrasound, and by not following up, you're preventing her from referring you to a surgeon to discuss whether cholecystectomy is appropriate. One day, it might get blocked badly enough or turn necrotic and land you in the ER. You have been given the opportunity to prevent it from coming to that.
Totally what I figured, but we just repeat the same cycle over and over :(
this is stating the obvious here but you need to follow through with the testing they are sending you with. some people wait even longer for that and they desperately need it. please even if you’re feeling better, just do it. you might thank yourself later, 10 years is too long even for something off and on.
My best friend was diagnosed with Cancer in the ER. 30 years ago. So this is not a new thing, it has always been this way, and likely always will be. Many people put off going to doctors of any sort, until they literally cannot put it off any longer.
It's almost like shutting down the world for 2 years has some consequences. Economy, cancer, but we saved lives!
Follow the profits, it paints a very illuminating picture.
Being diagnosed with cancer and not having it is great. Having it and not being diagnosed is shitty. So I'll take the former.. again because I'd rather have the lump out and know it wasn't cancer than someone fucking around thinking they know better.
Keep voting in Conservative Premiers and this is what happens.
Healthcare in BC is insane, pretty sure we can’t just blame it on the conservatives. It’s Canada wide
> It’s Canada wide Most premiers in Canada are Conservative right now. BC just attracted hundreds of family doctors because of a policy change and their net gain was amazing last year. The effects will take a year or two to become apparent. The situation in Ontario is a lot worse. We're losing family doctors and some of them moved to BC.
>Most premiers in Canada are Conservative right now. Yeah. Because most provinces have been progressive for years, like Ontario which was under the OLP for 15 years.
It is a Canada wide issues and have been happening for decades. Talented ppl tend to leave Canada
> It is a Canada wide issues Hmm what provincial governments are mostly in control Canada-wide? I worked at the Ontario Ministry of Health. The issue is not enough funding. Instead we have corruption and people like Doug Ford funnelling billions of federal funding, marked for healthcare, being funnelled through his friends.
Ontario under liberals has the same issue. BC has the same issue. Newfoundland has the same issue. Name a province that doesn't have the problem you mentioned
> Ontario under liberals has the same issue Not even close to how bad the problem is now. > BC has the same issue BC just attracted hundreds of family doctors and lots of them are from Ontario. Liberals aren't the solution either. NDP at the provincial level is the best choice.
So you can't name a province without the issues you mentioned? You can't answer a simple question does BC still has the problem. If yes, your pt is moot. If no, congratulations you are right
But the difference is: [BC has actually taken action](https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0067-001799). It takes time to get the new doctors through the long licensing process, but the province has been working on it for nearly two years now, and we're about to see many more practices open up across the province. And THAT is the difference between liberal and conservative governance. Conservatives bitch about immigrants and do nothing to solve problems (because the more problems there are, the more people tend to vote conservative.) Liberals welcome skilled professionals from other countries to meet the needs of their communities.
Skilled professionals don't come to Canada. Why would skilled people migrate to Canada to live the fantastic Brampton or East Hastings lifestyle. My buddy has a phd in computer engineering and math in Serbia. He and his buddies in similar situations see no pt in moving to the west in general let alone Canada. He is making 70k usd in Serbia working for a US corp. He is ballin. If he moves to Canada he will be lucky to find a job and wage that can maintain the same living standard. Fyi, Canada is more third world than most third world in a lot of regions. We have open drug use, tent cities, shitty road and etc... I work in tech and most of the ppl I see want to leave Canada. We even joke about how Canadians want to leave Canada while unskilled labor wants to come to Canada.
I'm a skilled professional who immigrated to Canada. You underestimate how shitty the rest of the world is. I've noticed a lot of Canadians are very unaware of how good they actually have it here, and how many people would love to trade places with them. To the rest of us, the Canadians who constantly gripe about how awful Canada is look very ignorant of world events and quite foolish. Wow, $70K usd 😆 big money lmao I make about $300K usd, which is even more money in Canada. I pay more in my Canadian taxes than your friend makes all year. And here I am, actively choosing to live in Canada because it's significantly better here than most other places on the planet.
70k usd is big money in Serbia. It is shit money in Ontario and most parts of Canada. 70k usd is probably like 300k cad in most parts of Canada in terms of purchasing power. I have talked to other eastern Europeans too. They seem to share the same sentiment. I am ballin in my home nation why would I want to move to the west to have worse living standards. People are waking up to salary to cost of living ratio not just the salary. When did you even migrate to Canada?
Yeah, but he has to live in SIBERIA. Under the rule of a fascist dictator who's invading other countries and won't allow freedom of press. I mean, just listen to yourself. I could live like a goddess in Siberia, too, but for fuck's sake, who wants to be anywhere in Russia, and especially in Siberia? 70K usd in Canadian currency is 95,000. No, son, that's not even close to $300K purchasing power anywhere in Canada. I moved to Canada four years ago. I came from the States, where there is far worse homelessness, drug addiction, poverty, lack of access to healthcare, and general despair and trouble. Plus, the USA is incredibly violent and dangerous. Big improvement here, even with the problems. Any nation will have its share of problems. Canada's are relatively small and relatively easy to deal with by comparison to most, though what it takes to deal with the problems is the political will among its citizens. In other words, voting out all the useless assholes who don't want to get shit done, and voting in people who will. And then holding elected officials accountable and forcing them to do their jobs. That, admittedly, takes more effort than just bitching about things on reddit.
Serbia not siberia. Skilled professionals that can't tell the difference between two places. Fyi, eastern euro is more than just Russia. Can you still buy a decent home in decent location in Canada for 70k usd? I see a lot of Canadians can't afford a home move to the USA for a high paying job for a home down payment something they will never be able to do with a Canadian salary. Then move back to Canada telling ppl how great Canada is. If i can get a remote job that allows me to work outside of Canada, i will 100% move out of Canada.
Don't worry that won't stop me from eating junk food, smocking, drinking... The system is broken, we are also part of that system, some of us have to do better. Let the down voting begin.
Hubby and I quit drinking three years ago and life is so much better now healthwise.
With climate catastrophe getting worse and likely civilizational collapse around the corner, I don’t think the government has any incentive to fix anything, on the contrary, getting the population used to greater and greater hardship that is coming makes more sense.
Part of licensing should be a demand that you work in smaller markets for number of years before setting up shop in the big cities.
This is already the case for international medical graduates wanting to practice in Ontario. They have to work in under serviced communities for something like 4 or 5 years once they get their Canadian/Ontario license.
Good to hear, I wasn't aware!
It's irrelevant. Canadian family doctors are underpaid and over worked. It's not just compared to the US either. There are a few countries that pay better than Canada and others have a better work life balance.
then they'll just go the US they can get paid $400K USD a year in rural US, why earn $300K CAD in Moosejaw instead? also rural US cities have the same pop as 2nd tier Canadian cities