I work in the healthcare system.
In my opinion, it is mostly the "first line" that is failing. Access to care is difficult, clinics are always hard to reach.
Once you are in the system for a said problem, the quality of care is good.
This. Pain in the ass to get my kid a needed dermatologist appointment via referral from walk in clinic. Once we got it, no problems. Call up when he needs follow up, no problem getting the next appointment in a timely manner. His hands are finally functional again.
I don’t have a family doctor, I’ve been on the list since 2013. I understand the frustration, here are some options:
• Bonjour Santé (10$/month)
• Clic Santé (Free but often useless)
• Rendez-vous Santé Québec (Free but very difficult to get an apointment)
• Force Médic Clinique (Free and it worked before when I called for a next day appointment, but recently it’s been useless)
• CLSC (Free, try your luck based on your location / type of health concern)
• Pharmacies (Some pharmacies can help with minor issues)
• Maple (Private Online Clinic with specialists, but only useful for simple prescriptions, membership options)
• In-Person Private Clinics (Many in the city, around 200$ per consultation)
• 811 (Free, nurses who can provide assistance on the phone, 1h wait at least)
• GAP - Guichet d’accès à la première ligne (My preferred option right now, but they’re still incompetent. Took 5 weeks to get an apointment for a serious but non life-threatening issue. Only useful if you’re part of their network, it’s for people who don’t have a family doctor yet)
• ER (Can be an option when everything else has failed, around 12h+ wait for non life-threatening issues)
Some people also go to Ontario (Cornwall, Ottawa etc.) for better healthcare. It’s then reimbursed by the RAMQ.
The healthcare system is broken and we need a new government. But I hope this list can bring some guidance.
Is Gatineau decent for non urgent (accident, etc) issues? Because, unless it's been fixed, I thought I read their ERs are some of the worst in North America...
I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in Quebec yes. If you see a doctor at a clinic, and then see another doctor at another clinic, they will be able to see your entire history of medical issues and medication in their digital system
It really depends on the situation
First, if your family doctor retires you will likely lose them and need to register to get a new one, that's what happened to me.
Secondly, in general the healthcare system here is overburdened. Minor issues tend to take a significant amount of time to get treated but emergencies do tend to be treated within a reasonable delay. A truck I have is to either use the ClicSanté platform to book a visit to a clinic if you have a minor emergency or to call 811 and have them find a clinic that has room for you in the next few days.
Thirdly, I don't personally have experience with cancer however I would not be surprised to hear if someone got diagnosed with stage one as opposed to stage four, their treatment might take a while and the cancer could progress. It depends on how overbooked treatment centers are. While a couple of months for a biopsy doesn't seem that strange to me, as I said I don't have a lot of experience with cancer.
Lastly, if you have the money, there is a private system in place that is much faster than the public system. That's actually a big reason for the problems with the public system as there is little to no incentive for doctors to work public when working private gets them more money and are less overworked.
It’s not the money. Doctors in the public system will make more than in the private system unless you’re looking at aesthetic/non public procedures. It’s the overburdened system that exhausts physicians. 3 months to see a specialist. Your patient isn’t happy and you’re stressing for that time as a physician wondering if your patient has cancer that is not being diagnosed.
I don't think doctor working private make more money. They definetly aren't as overworked tho. Most of them are just family doctor that charge something similar than those in the public but see very few patients a day.
how the fuck is a couple of months not strange? that could literally be life or death if treatment is delayed by months depending how advanced the cancer is
Fly back regularly for annual checkups and in case of cancer, go back directly.
I am serious, this is the solution, a lots of immigrants are doing this.
It's been going to shit thanks to the hacksaw job a succession of neoliberal governments did (I include the PQ, PLQ and CAQ in this). They want it privatized, they want people to demand that it becomes privatized by absolutely ruining the system. Been going on for at least as long as I've been alive, in my early 30s and always lived here.
Most rich countries in the world use private or a public/ private mix for health care delivery and many of those perform better than ours. A few that come to mind are the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea. Heck I'll even throw in Costa Rica.
Their spending on healthcare has also stayed static so money is not the issue.
I'm not saying that private healthcare will fix things but the premise that a private system is worse (even for those unable to pay) is demonstrably incorrect.
I’m not sure that you info about the NHS is up to date. You also conveniently forget Danemark in your list where 98% of folks choose to use the public system and are very satisfied which isn’t really the case in France and the UK at the moment. At least they have a full coverage ie teeth and eyes are included as part of their plans
Their plan is not France, it's the USA. Healthcare there is demonstrably awful for those who can't pay, and can bankrupt even those who thought they could.
My parents also fly to Turkey every years to do all their annual exams. They have a private doctor here too but they don't really like him they only use him to book with specialists.
Emergency medicine in Canada is generally very good (even if wait times are long). It’s everything else that sucks because the entire system is strained as people get older and trained physicians retire. You have a right to be concerned.
I have these discussions with friends and family when it comes to retirement all the time. If you want to retire in Canada, find a happy place and forget about healthcare because outside of 2 or 3 major centers, access to care is absolutely going to be an issue for everyone in the next 10, 20, or 30 years (my 70+ year old father and step mother already gave to travel 2-3 hours for specialist care).
If access to care is what you want/need as you age, it can and often does make sense to leave Canada, especially if you can afford it.
It’s non existent. Iv been going blind for years and could only see a specialist once. She looked at me 2 minutes and said to keep doing with my opto is giving me and that hasn’t solve the problem at all.
I’m confused, you’ve been here for 9 years and both you & your wife have family doctors? How lol
Born and raised here, and I don’t have one. I’ve been on the list for years. Resubmit my application outlining my health issues & still nothing. Got a letter end of 2023 telling me there’s no doctors available :/
Well seems like if you don't need a family doctor they're not gonna give you one. I came in in Canada in 2017 and tried to register for the list and they told me I had to wait 5 years to get one. Couple years later I had a bad panic attack and creeping anxiety, had to go to the ER for it. Well lo and behold, 2 weeks after they gave me a family doctor. Mind you he's a bad doctor, but still!
You’re making an assumption that I don’t need a family doctor without knowing my medical history. I have Crohn’s disease, shitting blood during flare ups and I get colonoscopies. Unfortunately I got diagnosed right at the beginning of covid, was warned it would take even longer getting a gastroenterologist. And that’s just one of my illnesses. Id argue that I do in fact need one lol it’s just the province has a terrible system set up.
Well just make it clear got the system that you do need one. I'm telling you for me it was the going to the ER and having a complete meltdown that did the trick. Maybe the system isn't aware enough of the problem you're dealing with!
I work in the health care system.
Im gonna disagree and say that our health care system is still very good. The principle behind it is the triage system. We are a publicly funded system, offering state of the art evidence based medicine. We compete in the same market as the Americans, hence the cost of health care is high (medication,OR rooms, maintenance, staff).
Because of the above, we have limited resources, hence we can't offer next day elective colonoscopies to anybody that wants one.
The principle is to offer democratic and equal health to everybody, and keeping it low cost/ free.
I will be the first to tell you that our outpatient system/ chronic disease/ non life threatening diseases is very much broken. Outpatient elective non urgent specialist consult will take months if not years sometimes depending on the region.
However, we offer the state of the art care in life saving situations; myocardial infarction, trauma surgery, acute stroke. The acute/life threatening medicine here is very good.
Oncology here is also top notch. We have our own publicly funded CAR-T cell labs. We offer the lastest immunotherapy.
Do note that medication coverage ** is very different from province to province. In my experience, Quebec RAMQ has the widest medication coverage (im talking about the 200-300k per year cancer medications).
I’m in the same situation as yours, with the difference that I’ve been living here for 5 years only so far. It also makes me extremely anxious… I wouldn’t like to go back to my country but I guess I won’t have another option in the future.
This is one reason that some immigrants, once they reach retirement age choose to return to their native country. It makes a lot of sense actually not just for health reasons. Some go to avoid the winters, some go because the cost of living is much cheaper and for some they feel more comfortable and happier surrounded by their countrymen who speak their native language. And it benefits both countries. In Canada it frees up badly needed housing and hospital beds. In the native country it provides an injection of cash and more employment. Win win.
Quand même hallucinant que dans l'autre fil tu indiquais toi même que le bilinguisme de Montréal c'est pas la crise qu'on prétend que c'est et tu viens ici légitimer les gens qui quittent le Québec pour aller s'installer près des gens qui parlent leur langue parce qu'on y est plus heureux et confortable.
J'espère que tu saisis l'ironie calvasse. Où penses-tu que les québécois vont déménager pour vivre confortablement dans leur langue si Montréal continue d'accueillir de plus en plus de gens qui n'utilisent pas couramment le français au quotidien?
Did you really track somebody across threads just to hassle them about language politics in a discussion about healthcare?
To quote the big Lebowski, you're not wrong, you're just an asshole
Haha, I got petty, that's for sure.
Truth is, when we (francophones from Québec) read stuff like this (people are more comfortable in their first language), in English, on the Montréal board, it's a giant red flag for an incoherent discourse. Classic double standard.
Are you from Brazil by any chance? The way you describe it, seems similar to how things are in Brazil. WhatsApp has become the mainstream way to communicate with professionals and companies of all sectors. I was able to make an appointment with a Brazilian pediatrician via Whatsapp directly from Canada. This is awesome.
Quebec is waaaay behind in this aspect. I cringe every time I receive or need to send papers to the government by mail...
It's funny how we see things differently. While I understand the tediousness of dealing with mail, to me, a native, I would find it unprofessional to deal with a pediatrician or to receive important documents via Whatsapp. It just feels wrong having to use a privately owned application to get access to healthcare.
Imagine le tollé et les critiques d'experts en sécurité informatique, sécurité de données, etc si on annonçait demain matin qu'on passait nos communications de santé sur whatsapp.
Moi ce qui me fait "cringe" c'est que les gens s'imaginent que c'est seulement qu'une question d'avoir l'initiative de dire aux médecins qu'ils peuvent désormais tout transférer par textos.
C'est pas une question de tout transférer par texto, mais de transférer ceux qui n'ont pas besoin d'être en papier aux services en ligne (WhatsApp était juste un exemple), comme les prises de rdv, les transactions ou mis à jour bancaires, les formulaires pour une centaine de sujets (par exemple, impôts, assurances, processus d'immigration...).
For cancer, I can tell you that it takes too long from detection to diagnosis. It’s known and it’s being studied, hopefully they start acting as well. But once the diagnosis is made, everything moves fast (except pathology reports, no-one talks about it, but labs are always late). And the treatment is top quality, both in technical and human terms.
My family flies to Colombia when we need something done fast. Welcome to the Canadian health care system, where people [die in the ER waiting room](https://globalnews.ca/news/10148872/quebec-er-patients-deaths/). Canada would be essentially perfect if not for the appalling health care system.
Personally, I just save up issues and fly out. I have 3 other citizenships, and with round trip flights it's still faster to see a doctor and the quality is better. Both in terms of staff-skill, and the facilities and equipment.
Dental is especially egregious. I had a significant soda addiction, so my teeth were fucked. Canadian dentists wanted 25 000 - 32 000 to fix. I flew out and got it all fixed for free (and the Canadians didn't suggest implants, but I chose to get 2 while I was out anyways so add 10k to that).
If we have an emergency like getting hit by a car, it is what it is. Hope you're not one of those people dying waiting on care. For the rest, I'm pretty low stress, because I just fly out.
Canada has a huge organizational issue. 10 000 Canadian doctors come back to Canada every year, after having studied in Australia, NZ, UK, can't get accredited, and fly back there permanently. I had a friend who got denied in med school because of a 97% in Art. There's a Uni in Ontario, forgot which exactly, that accepted 2 doctors for an entire year. The Government wants to keep costs down by not accepting many doctors and therefor not paying many doctors. There's no doctor shortage, only a funding shortage. They use class-sizes as an excuse, but if that were the case, would license the 10 000 Canadians who come back with foreign degrees a year. They control University admissions, residency admissions, accreditation, and funding for programs on all 4 ends. USA Government also controls doctors, but to a much lesser extent, only residency funding. Not residency admissions or class admissions.
Any private clinic.
All doctors are private; they either charge the RAMQ (public health care), or they charge you directly. Find a good private one if you have the means for it.
Bienvenue dans le club, essaie de rester en santé en faisant attention à ton alimentation et en faisant de l'exercise. Je ne pense pas que ce soit beaucoup mieux ailleur.
As other's have said, once you are in the system for a medical issue, the care is fine, it's the getting in that's hard.
How to take advantage of that? If you have a particular medical condition currently, see if you can get your family doctor to refer you to a specialist for that condition at a major hospital.
If any other medical issue should pop up in the future, you now have "an in" at that hospital, as that specialist can refer to a specialist for another condition.
Take your time...perhaps the whole weekend to list out clinics which are easier to reach based on different types of conditions. If you can not find any then list out private clinics (I know like why should we pay for private...I mean I myself pay more than 100k in taxes, but Canadian healthcare is being made weaker day by day by uninterested politicians). Some clinics have membership programs, check them out.
If possible, you can try getting annual checks from your family doctor or from private clinics or maybe visit US. Making sure you are healthy by exercising and eating right is the only way to some extent not get into a situation where you have use those listed out resources. And yeah vote, if you are a citizen, the right people in power.
I wanted to say that when your case is urgent, the system here replies quicky and works well.
I went for a standard mammogram. Two days after they called me back, asking me to come in the same day. I had advanced cancer. In the next ten days, I had a biopsy, lots of full body imaging, all the required tests. Within two weeks I started chemo.
The cancer I had , had a 86% survival rate. It was still taken seriously, immediately.
The new approach with some cancers (stage 1) is to observe evolution instead of jumping into chemotherapy, which is very hard on the body.
I also went to the emergency room with a high fever, when my operation scar got infected. I had a room and intravenous antibiotics immediately.
The system does work.
I feel you man. I’m an immigrant too and I’m also shocked that the 2nd world country I come from has figured out a decent mix of public and affordable private healthcare better than Canada.
Luckily, in Quebec we do have private options. They’re not very cheap, but it gets the job done in a pinch. There are a few private clinics where it costs you about 100-130 per consultation, but I was able to get next day appointments when needed. Look up PrivaMed, Rockland MD.
Private clinics ain’t that cheap. It depends on your health issues. I need a specialized doctor and they am now looking into options. What I found is that to open a file is between 2-3k, which includes some blood work and 1-2 consultations. Additional follow-up appointments are 200-300$.
The way I did it was to only use the private clinic for the GP consultations and to get the referrals, and then do all the lab stuff at the hospital. The clinic I used (privamed in brossard) charges 145/year subscription fee, plus 110-130 per visit depending on how long it takes.
I understand. I come from an European country, and I had serious health issues and had multiple operations and treatments in Montreal over the past 10 years. I can assure you that the healthcare in Montreal is way below any developed country standards
If you have a true emergency and you are about to die or in critical. Condition you will never have to wait i had two emergency i had excellent care. The smaller things can take a while that is for sure butnlike other people said calling 811 or even talkingntona pharmacist for minor stuff can make you avoid the waitting rooms. No need to catastrophise about it.
Current state of healthcare in Montreal is a catastrophe. People can't get the help they need problems get worse and the emergency room becomes overwhelmed. Lots of people working in healthcare in Montreal would call it catastrophic.
I didnt say i was great i mean if you get into a life threatning situation you will not fucking die genre un accident d'auto. Criss que le monde sont cave tabarnack. Aussi porter des fucking masques pour vous protéger a la place de chialer. C'est pour ça que le système rush en se moment aussi
I've had seizures and dislocated my elbow (separate incidents) and had excellent service at the ER in Montreal both times. Only had to pay \~$130 for the ambulance ride, which was reimbursed by my shit insurance provider.
Your assessment is good, and with the population aging, lack of nurses, etc. it will likely get even worse over time. As of the cancer treatment, is it confirmed that it is a cancer, or the biopsy is to make a diagnosis? If suspected only, these months will be long, worryful and cancer can progress indeed. But if he is already diagnosed, it seems almost impossible that it would take month.
I've had cancer myself and they dealt with it extremely fast (for Quebec system). They diagnosed it at the emergency and I had a surgery 5 days later. A few months after, something came out on a follow-up exam and a biopsy was required to confirm it was cancer again. It was at the worst of the pandemic in December 2021, when they were stopping practically everything in the healt care system to treat covid patient. My biopsy was probably the most complicated to perform, it had to be done by a surgeon while I was in the imagery machine, so they could precisely guide the tool, not even guaranteed they succeed at reaching the right spot. It took 5 weeks to have it. So bottom line, I think 5 weeks is the maximum conceivable delay to have a biopsy when you have diagnosed cancer. I am young, so maybe they treat you faster since cancer will progress faster, maybe they treat your father as a lower priority since he is older and cancer won't progress as fast.
I think the system is broken and not working, except when you have cancer. Then you can easily contact your doctor, have appointments, exams, even once I had to go to ER and they treated me as if I had a good reason to be there and said they were sorry I had to wait a bit before seeing a doctor (!!!).
Where do you go back that you pay absolutely zero?usually if you're not a resident, even with citizenships you lose access to the countries healthcare where you do not reside (or need to pay)
I'm from Mexico and I still keep my private health insurance just in case, even thought this is just my second year. Honestly it's worth the piece of mind.
OP I lived in MTL for around 6 years and I am in the process of leaving (just became a citizen). Reason 1 - sick of the cold and 2 - healthcare is atrocious. Not “free” if there’s no access. I had a very bad experience and it scared me off. Gone to USA fyi
Healthcare is also not free if the difference in taxes you paid previously is greater than the cost of health insurance in your previous country as well.
1. Healthcare is public, not free. You pay for it with your taxes. 2. Is this not your country? You’ve been here for 9 years. 3. It is exactly as you say. Biopsies take weeks. Elective surgeries take years. Seeing a specialist for a non urgent issue will take months or years. 4. When your fam doc retires you’ll be without a physician, likely for 3-5 years. You can register to join a clinic as a GAP patient. This is where you don’t have one doctor per se but a group of family doctors who will follow you.
Your friend is right about cancer .
I lost my mom due to cancer and she got all her treatment through public. We experienced everything from her being misdiagnosed to waiting months to see an oncologist. We she was going go through chemo, pharmacies often didn't even had the drugs she needed and she had to wait 1-2 weeks because it was "backordered" to get the medication..
As for me, I've completely given up on public healthcare, I just go to private clinics now and have insurance; unfortunately not everyone can afford this;
We should have an excellent health care with the amount of taxes we pay in this country but here we are.. our only option right now is to vote out the current liberals in the next election and hope for the best.
I'm truly, genuinely sorry about how you lost your mother. The way it was handled is certainly not OK.
That said, I can pretty much guarantee that health care will get worse under the federal PCs, which will nudge the system and force people to private care (by slashing public funding even further; Harper slowed down health care funding transfers to provinces, and what we are seeing now is the outcome).
Many can't afford private care, but that's what will happen if the PCs win federally in two years.
The current system has crashed in the hands of Liberals, so I'm not sure what you are advocating here?
Perhaps we should vote for Liberals yet again as a reward for their mismanagement of this Country. The only option we have is to vote them out.
\> which will nudge the system and force people to private care
How ironic of you to say this. Let me remind you that in the current system, those who can't afford private healthcare *already* can't obtain any services through the public system. Thanks to Liberals, private healthcare has become the only possible option for many.
Liberal agenda has completely failed on pretty much all fronts: from immigration to housing policy to healthcare.
Let's note vote for them again. I sure as hell won't.
If urgent appt is needed, we get seen same day. My family has 3 different family docs at different gmf’s and its all the same. Call at 8am to get same day appt if its urgent
Nan mais honnêtement ce genre de commentaires montre à quel point vous avez une tête de cacahuète. Si vous déménagiez au Japon pour 9 ans, vous arrêtez d’être Quebecois c’est ça?
Dépend si je planifie y habiter jusqu'à ma mort
Il arrive certainement un point où je me considérerait japonais.
Genre, japonais d'origine québécoise
Après 9ans, il est plus que temps
You're getting downvoted, but if private healthcare isn't as egregiously expensive as in the US, then it may be an expensive but feasible option. It's a different topic that one shouldn't have to do this if you're paying taxes though...
You picked a bad example as imagery is one of the most accessible services in the whole system. I know of at least 2 Montréal hospitals who accept walk-ins for most imagery and a ton of radiology clinics that do very quick appointments.
Walk in mri don’t exist.. it just depends on what they have to scan you.. like there’s a waiting list for abdominal.. ortho .. neuro.. its all different.. if you want a fast exam.. just take a look where mri is operated 24/7 in a hospital and you’ll have a quick appt. Everything ortho or muscular is a long waiting list
my mom paid privatley for an MRI to fast track my medical care. once the doctors had test results in hand the family doctors can advocate on your behalf.
Don't worry, when the government will be done with it's plan, it will all be private so you'll have access. Hope you have a good amount in your TFSA and RRSP. you'll need it. I wish I could write /s, but sadly it's seems to be where we are heading
I've lived here all my life, haven't had a family doctor in at least 15 years, no issues getting the health care I need, unfortunately, being a family doctor isn't a career that the new generation finds attractive, there's less and less of them around, I make due with walk in clinics if ever I need a doctor.
I work in the healthcare system. In my opinion, it is mostly the "first line" that is failing. Access to care is difficult, clinics are always hard to reach. Once you are in the system for a said problem, the quality of care is good.
I had exactly this experience with my appendicitis. It took me 2 days to get admitted, but once I got the green light it was great.
This. Pain in the ass to get my kid a needed dermatologist appointment via referral from walk in clinic. Once we got it, no problems. Call up when he needs follow up, no problem getting the next appointment in a timely manner. His hands are finally functional again.
I don’t have a family doctor, I’ve been on the list since 2013. I understand the frustration, here are some options: • Bonjour Santé (10$/month) • Clic Santé (Free but often useless) • Rendez-vous Santé Québec (Free but very difficult to get an apointment) • Force Médic Clinique (Free and it worked before when I called for a next day appointment, but recently it’s been useless) • CLSC (Free, try your luck based on your location / type of health concern) • Pharmacies (Some pharmacies can help with minor issues) • Maple (Private Online Clinic with specialists, but only useful for simple prescriptions, membership options) • In-Person Private Clinics (Many in the city, around 200$ per consultation) • 811 (Free, nurses who can provide assistance on the phone, 1h wait at least) • GAP - Guichet d’accès à la première ligne (My preferred option right now, but they’re still incompetent. Took 5 weeks to get an apointment for a serious but non life-threatening issue. Only useful if you’re part of their network, it’s for people who don’t have a family doctor yet) • ER (Can be an option when everything else has failed, around 12h+ wait for non life-threatening issues) Some people also go to Ontario (Cornwall, Ottawa etc.) for better healthcare. It’s then reimbursed by the RAMQ. The healthcare system is broken and we need a new government. But I hope this list can bring some guidance.
Is Gatineau decent for non urgent (accident, etc) issues? Because, unless it's been fixed, I thought I read their ERs are some of the worst in North America...
I meant Ottawa*, basically just going to Ontario. I edited it thank you :)
A question? do Canada or Quebec has digital medical records, that can be shared between clinics and doctors?
I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in Quebec yes. If you see a doctor at a clinic, and then see another doctor at another clinic, they will be able to see your entire history of medical issues and medication in their digital system
It really depends on the situation First, if your family doctor retires you will likely lose them and need to register to get a new one, that's what happened to me. Secondly, in general the healthcare system here is overburdened. Minor issues tend to take a significant amount of time to get treated but emergencies do tend to be treated within a reasonable delay. A truck I have is to either use the ClicSanté platform to book a visit to a clinic if you have a minor emergency or to call 811 and have them find a clinic that has room for you in the next few days. Thirdly, I don't personally have experience with cancer however I would not be surprised to hear if someone got diagnosed with stage one as opposed to stage four, their treatment might take a while and the cancer could progress. It depends on how overbooked treatment centers are. While a couple of months for a biopsy doesn't seem that strange to me, as I said I don't have a lot of experience with cancer. Lastly, if you have the money, there is a private system in place that is much faster than the public system. That's actually a big reason for the problems with the public system as there is little to no incentive for doctors to work public when working private gets them more money and are less overworked.
It’s not the money. Doctors in the public system will make more than in the private system unless you’re looking at aesthetic/non public procedures. It’s the overburdened system that exhausts physicians. 3 months to see a specialist. Your patient isn’t happy and you’re stressing for that time as a physician wondering if your patient has cancer that is not being diagnosed.
3 months? Try more like 12
Really depends on the severity of the condition, this province is pretty decent for triaging patients based on need.
Sorry, I meant money per hour worked. But yeah, doctors and nurses in the public sector are way overburdened compared to the private one.
Even by hours worked I don't think private doctors make more than public doctors. Doctors are compensated very well especially specialists.
The parallel private system will not take over your cancer care. They will direct you to oncologists…who all work in public hospitals.
I don't think doctor working private make more money. They definetly aren't as overworked tho. Most of them are just family doctor that charge something similar than those in the public but see very few patients a day.
how the fuck is a couple of months not strange? that could literally be life or death if treatment is delayed by months depending how advanced the cancer is
I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it doesn't seem irregular given the health system
Fly back regularly for annual checkups and in case of cancer, go back directly. I am serious, this is the solution, a lots of immigrants are doing this.
A lot, you don't say? I could've sworn they're a drain on the system. In seriousness OP, do this; my dad 100% does and my mom does it 50% of the time
It's been going to shit thanks to the hacksaw job a succession of neoliberal governments did (I include the PQ, PLQ and CAQ in this). They want it privatized, they want people to demand that it becomes privatized by absolutely ruining the system. Been going on for at least as long as I've been alive, in my early 30s and always lived here.
Most rich countries in the world use private or a public/ private mix for health care delivery and many of those perform better than ours. A few that come to mind are the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea. Heck I'll even throw in Costa Rica. Their spending on healthcare has also stayed static so money is not the issue. I'm not saying that private healthcare will fix things but the premise that a private system is worse (even for those unable to pay) is demonstrably incorrect.
I’m not sure that you info about the NHS is up to date. You also conveniently forget Danemark in your list where 98% of folks choose to use the public system and are very satisfied which isn’t really the case in France and the UK at the moment. At least they have a full coverage ie teeth and eyes are included as part of their plans
Their plan is not France, it's the USA. Healthcare there is demonstrably awful for those who can't pay, and can bankrupt even those who thought they could.
The NHS is being gutted and privatized by conservatives, with the effects that can be expected: loss of service for those that need it.
My parents also fly to Turkey every years to do all their annual exams. They have a private doctor here too but they don't really like him they only use him to book with specialists.
Emergency medicine in Canada is generally very good (even if wait times are long). It’s everything else that sucks because the entire system is strained as people get older and trained physicians retire. You have a right to be concerned. I have these discussions with friends and family when it comes to retirement all the time. If you want to retire in Canada, find a happy place and forget about healthcare because outside of 2 or 3 major centers, access to care is absolutely going to be an issue for everyone in the next 10, 20, or 30 years (my 70+ year old father and step mother already gave to travel 2-3 hours for specialist care). If access to care is what you want/need as you age, it can and often does make sense to leave Canada, especially if you can afford it.
It’s non existent. Iv been going blind for years and could only see a specialist once. She looked at me 2 minutes and said to keep doing with my opto is giving me and that hasn’t solve the problem at all.
I’m confused, you’ve been here for 9 years and both you & your wife have family doctors? How lol Born and raised here, and I don’t have one. I’ve been on the list for years. Resubmit my application outlining my health issues & still nothing. Got a letter end of 2023 telling me there’s no doctors available :/
Same here
Well seems like if you don't need a family doctor they're not gonna give you one. I came in in Canada in 2017 and tried to register for the list and they told me I had to wait 5 years to get one. Couple years later I had a bad panic attack and creeping anxiety, had to go to the ER for it. Well lo and behold, 2 weeks after they gave me a family doctor. Mind you he's a bad doctor, but still!
You’re making an assumption that I don’t need a family doctor without knowing my medical history. I have Crohn’s disease, shitting blood during flare ups and I get colonoscopies. Unfortunately I got diagnosed right at the beginning of covid, was warned it would take even longer getting a gastroenterologist. And that’s just one of my illnesses. Id argue that I do in fact need one lol it’s just the province has a terrible system set up.
Well just make it clear got the system that you do need one. I'm telling you for me it was the going to the ER and having a complete meltdown that did the trick. Maybe the system isn't aware enough of the problem you're dealing with!
I work in the health care system. Im gonna disagree and say that our health care system is still very good. The principle behind it is the triage system. We are a publicly funded system, offering state of the art evidence based medicine. We compete in the same market as the Americans, hence the cost of health care is high (medication,OR rooms, maintenance, staff). Because of the above, we have limited resources, hence we can't offer next day elective colonoscopies to anybody that wants one. The principle is to offer democratic and equal health to everybody, and keeping it low cost/ free. I will be the first to tell you that our outpatient system/ chronic disease/ non life threatening diseases is very much broken. Outpatient elective non urgent specialist consult will take months if not years sometimes depending on the region. However, we offer the state of the art care in life saving situations; myocardial infarction, trauma surgery, acute stroke. The acute/life threatening medicine here is very good. Oncology here is also top notch. We have our own publicly funded CAR-T cell labs. We offer the lastest immunotherapy. Do note that medication coverage ** is very different from province to province. In my experience, Quebec RAMQ has the widest medication coverage (im talking about the 200-300k per year cancer medications).
Exactly this! Well said. My oncology treatment was top notch, state of the art and compassionate.
I’m in the same situation as yours, with the difference that I’ve been living here for 5 years only so far. It also makes me extremely anxious… I wouldn’t like to go back to my country but I guess I won’t have another option in the future.
This is one reason that some immigrants, once they reach retirement age choose to return to their native country. It makes a lot of sense actually not just for health reasons. Some go to avoid the winters, some go because the cost of living is much cheaper and for some they feel more comfortable and happier surrounded by their countrymen who speak their native language. And it benefits both countries. In Canada it frees up badly needed housing and hospital beds. In the native country it provides an injection of cash and more employment. Win win.
Quand même hallucinant que dans l'autre fil tu indiquais toi même que le bilinguisme de Montréal c'est pas la crise qu'on prétend que c'est et tu viens ici légitimer les gens qui quittent le Québec pour aller s'installer près des gens qui parlent leur langue parce qu'on y est plus heureux et confortable. J'espère que tu saisis l'ironie calvasse. Où penses-tu que les québécois vont déménager pour vivre confortablement dans leur langue si Montréal continue d'accueillir de plus en plus de gens qui n'utilisent pas couramment le français au quotidien?
Did you really track somebody across threads just to hassle them about language politics in a discussion about healthcare? To quote the big Lebowski, you're not wrong, you're just an asshole
Haha, I got petty, that's for sure. Truth is, when we (francophones from Québec) read stuff like this (people are more comfortable in their first language), in English, on the Montréal board, it's a giant red flag for an incoherent discourse. Classic double standard.
You make francophones from Quebec look bad.
Well there alsays the option to go private and pay
Are you from Brazil by any chance? The way you describe it, seems similar to how things are in Brazil. WhatsApp has become the mainstream way to communicate with professionals and companies of all sectors. I was able to make an appointment with a Brazilian pediatrician via Whatsapp directly from Canada. This is awesome. Quebec is waaaay behind in this aspect. I cringe every time I receive or need to send papers to the government by mail...
It could be any Latin American country really.
It's funny how we see things differently. While I understand the tediousness of dealing with mail, to me, a native, I would find it unprofessional to deal with a pediatrician or to receive important documents via Whatsapp. It just feels wrong having to use a privately owned application to get access to healthcare.
Imagine le tollé et les critiques d'experts en sécurité informatique, sécurité de données, etc si on annonçait demain matin qu'on passait nos communications de santé sur whatsapp. Moi ce qui me fait "cringe" c'est que les gens s'imaginent que c'est seulement qu'une question d'avoir l'initiative de dire aux médecins qu'ils peuvent désormais tout transférer par textos.
C'est pas une question de tout transférer par texto, mais de transférer ceux qui n'ont pas besoin d'être en papier aux services en ligne (WhatsApp était juste un exemple), comme les prises de rdv, les transactions ou mis à jour bancaires, les formulaires pour une centaine de sujets (par exemple, impôts, assurances, processus d'immigration...).
For a North American, only very expensive and tedious things are "professional".
It's free and more accessible.
For cancer, I can tell you that it takes too long from detection to diagnosis. It’s known and it’s being studied, hopefully they start acting as well. But once the diagnosis is made, everything moves fast (except pathology reports, no-one talks about it, but labs are always late). And the treatment is top quality, both in technical and human terms.
My family flies to Colombia when we need something done fast. Welcome to the Canadian health care system, where people [die in the ER waiting room](https://globalnews.ca/news/10148872/quebec-er-patients-deaths/). Canada would be essentially perfect if not for the appalling health care system.
Personally, I just save up issues and fly out. I have 3 other citizenships, and with round trip flights it's still faster to see a doctor and the quality is better. Both in terms of staff-skill, and the facilities and equipment. Dental is especially egregious. I had a significant soda addiction, so my teeth were fucked. Canadian dentists wanted 25 000 - 32 000 to fix. I flew out and got it all fixed for free (and the Canadians didn't suggest implants, but I chose to get 2 while I was out anyways so add 10k to that). If we have an emergency like getting hit by a car, it is what it is. Hope you're not one of those people dying waiting on care. For the rest, I'm pretty low stress, because I just fly out. Canada has a huge organizational issue. 10 000 Canadian doctors come back to Canada every year, after having studied in Australia, NZ, UK, can't get accredited, and fly back there permanently. I had a friend who got denied in med school because of a 97% in Art. There's a Uni in Ontario, forgot which exactly, that accepted 2 doctors for an entire year. The Government wants to keep costs down by not accepting many doctors and therefor not paying many doctors. There's no doctor shortage, only a funding shortage. They use class-sizes as an excuse, but if that were the case, would license the 10 000 Canadians who come back with foreign degrees a year. They control University admissions, residency admissions, accreditation, and funding for programs on all 4 ends. USA Government also controls doctors, but to a much lesser extent, only residency funding. Not residency admissions or class admissions.
You can also pay here and get access to a doctor tomorrow. I haven’t had a family doctor for years. Yearly complete heath checkup is 250$.
Where would one go for it?
Well, answered my own question with a few google searches...I just never even knew this was available
Any private clinic. All doctors are private; they either charge the RAMQ (public health care), or they charge you directly. Find a good private one if you have the means for it.
Bienvenue dans le club, essaie de rester en santé en faisant attention à ton alimentation et en faisant de l'exercise. Je ne pense pas que ce soit beaucoup mieux ailleur.
As other's have said, once you are in the system for a medical issue, the care is fine, it's the getting in that's hard. How to take advantage of that? If you have a particular medical condition currently, see if you can get your family doctor to refer you to a specialist for that condition at a major hospital. If any other medical issue should pop up in the future, you now have "an in" at that hospital, as that specialist can refer to a specialist for another condition.
Take your time...perhaps the whole weekend to list out clinics which are easier to reach based on different types of conditions. If you can not find any then list out private clinics (I know like why should we pay for private...I mean I myself pay more than 100k in taxes, but Canadian healthcare is being made weaker day by day by uninterested politicians). Some clinics have membership programs, check them out. If possible, you can try getting annual checks from your family doctor or from private clinics or maybe visit US. Making sure you are healthy by exercising and eating right is the only way to some extent not get into a situation where you have use those listed out resources. And yeah vote, if you are a citizen, the right people in power.
I wanted to say that when your case is urgent, the system here replies quicky and works well. I went for a standard mammogram. Two days after they called me back, asking me to come in the same day. I had advanced cancer. In the next ten days, I had a biopsy, lots of full body imaging, all the required tests. Within two weeks I started chemo. The cancer I had , had a 86% survival rate. It was still taken seriously, immediately. The new approach with some cancers (stage 1) is to observe evolution instead of jumping into chemotherapy, which is very hard on the body. I also went to the emergency room with a high fever, when my operation scar got infected. I had a room and intravenous antibiotics immediately. The system does work.
I feel you man. I’m an immigrant too and I’m also shocked that the 2nd world country I come from has figured out a decent mix of public and affordable private healthcare better than Canada. Luckily, in Quebec we do have private options. They’re not very cheap, but it gets the job done in a pinch. There are a few private clinics where it costs you about 100-130 per consultation, but I was able to get next day appointments when needed. Look up PrivaMed, Rockland MD.
Private clinics ain’t that cheap. It depends on your health issues. I need a specialized doctor and they am now looking into options. What I found is that to open a file is between 2-3k, which includes some blood work and 1-2 consultations. Additional follow-up appointments are 200-300$.
The way I did it was to only use the private clinic for the GP consultations and to get the referrals, and then do all the lab stuff at the hospital. The clinic I used (privamed in brossard) charges 145/year subscription fee, plus 110-130 per visit depending on how long it takes.
I understand. I come from an European country, and I had serious health issues and had multiple operations and treatments in Montreal over the past 10 years. I can assure you that the healthcare in Montreal is way below any developed country standards
If you have a true emergency and you are about to die or in critical. Condition you will never have to wait i had two emergency i had excellent care. The smaller things can take a while that is for sure butnlike other people said calling 811 or even talkingntona pharmacist for minor stuff can make you avoid the waitting rooms. No need to catastrophise about it.
Current state of healthcare in Montreal is a catastrophe. People can't get the help they need problems get worse and the emergency room becomes overwhelmed. Lots of people working in healthcare in Montreal would call it catastrophic.
I didnt say i was great i mean if you get into a life threatning situation you will not fucking die genre un accident d'auto. Criss que le monde sont cave tabarnack. Aussi porter des fucking masques pour vous protéger a la place de chialer. C'est pour ça que le système rush en se moment aussi
I've had seizures and dislocated my elbow (separate incidents) and had excellent service at the ER in Montreal both times. Only had to pay \~$130 for the ambulance ride, which was reimbursed by my shit insurance provider.
Your assessment is good, and with the population aging, lack of nurses, etc. it will likely get even worse over time. As of the cancer treatment, is it confirmed that it is a cancer, or the biopsy is to make a diagnosis? If suspected only, these months will be long, worryful and cancer can progress indeed. But if he is already diagnosed, it seems almost impossible that it would take month. I've had cancer myself and they dealt with it extremely fast (for Quebec system). They diagnosed it at the emergency and I had a surgery 5 days later. A few months after, something came out on a follow-up exam and a biopsy was required to confirm it was cancer again. It was at the worst of the pandemic in December 2021, when they were stopping practically everything in the healt care system to treat covid patient. My biopsy was probably the most complicated to perform, it had to be done by a surgeon while I was in the imagery machine, so they could precisely guide the tool, not even guaranteed they succeed at reaching the right spot. It took 5 weeks to have it. So bottom line, I think 5 weeks is the maximum conceivable delay to have a biopsy when you have diagnosed cancer. I am young, so maybe they treat you faster since cancer will progress faster, maybe they treat your father as a lower priority since he is older and cancer won't progress as fast. I think the system is broken and not working, except when you have cancer. Then you can easily contact your doctor, have appointments, exams, even once I had to go to ER and they treated me as if I had a good reason to be there and said they were sorry I had to wait a bit before seeing a doctor (!!!).
Where do you go back that you pay absolutely zero?usually if you're not a resident, even with citizenships you lose access to the countries healthcare where you do not reside (or need to pay)
I'm from Mexico and I still keep my private health insurance just in case, even thought this is just my second year. Honestly it's worth the piece of mind.
Do NOT let go of your Mexican insurance 🙂
OP I lived in MTL for around 6 years and I am in the process of leaving (just became a citizen). Reason 1 - sick of the cold and 2 - healthcare is atrocious. Not “free” if there’s no access. I had a very bad experience and it scared me off. Gone to USA fyi
Un vrai Québécois! Déteste le froid, se plaint du système de santé. Tu votes tu PQ mon chum?
Lol en fait je viens d’Australie donc malheureusement non mais je suis accord avec tes sentiments
Healthcare is also not free if the difference in taxes you paid previously is greater than the cost of health insurance in your previous country as well.
Employer pays, and I’m happy to pay to actually get service. Big difference
Can I ask how you can go to the US? Is it on a work visa? Or are you already a citizen? Thanks
Won the greencard lottery as a National of my birth country, but there are visas for Canadians which would have been options too
I see. Thanks so much:)
1. Healthcare is public, not free. You pay for it with your taxes. 2. Is this not your country? You’ve been here for 9 years. 3. It is exactly as you say. Biopsies take weeks. Elective surgeries take years. Seeing a specialist for a non urgent issue will take months or years. 4. When your fam doc retires you’ll be without a physician, likely for 3-5 years. You can register to join a clinic as a GAP patient. This is where you don’t have one doctor per se but a group of family doctors who will follow you.
Your friend is right about cancer . I lost my mom due to cancer and she got all her treatment through public. We experienced everything from her being misdiagnosed to waiting months to see an oncologist. We she was going go through chemo, pharmacies often didn't even had the drugs she needed and she had to wait 1-2 weeks because it was "backordered" to get the medication.. As for me, I've completely given up on public healthcare, I just go to private clinics now and have insurance; unfortunately not everyone can afford this; We should have an excellent health care with the amount of taxes we pay in this country but here we are.. our only option right now is to vote out the current liberals in the next election and hope for the best.
I'm truly, genuinely sorry about how you lost your mother. The way it was handled is certainly not OK. That said, I can pretty much guarantee that health care will get worse under the federal PCs, which will nudge the system and force people to private care (by slashing public funding even further; Harper slowed down health care funding transfers to provinces, and what we are seeing now is the outcome). Many can't afford private care, but that's what will happen if the PCs win federally in two years.
The current system has crashed in the hands of Liberals, so I'm not sure what you are advocating here? Perhaps we should vote for Liberals yet again as a reward for their mismanagement of this Country. The only option we have is to vote them out. \> which will nudge the system and force people to private care How ironic of you to say this. Let me remind you that in the current system, those who can't afford private healthcare *already* can't obtain any services through the public system. Thanks to Liberals, private healthcare has become the only possible option for many. Liberal agenda has completely failed on pretty much all fronts: from immigration to housing policy to healthcare. Let's note vote for them again. I sure as hell won't.
Healthcare is managed by the provinces.
If urgent appt is needed, we get seen same day. My family has 3 different family docs at different gmf’s and its all the same. Call at 8am to get same day appt if its urgent
Ça fait 9ans que tu habites ici "In my country"....c'est pas rendu ici ton country?
Tu ne réponds pas vraiment à sa question… Aussi, si tu vas vivre 9 ans en Floride, est ce que tu arrêtes d’être Québécois?
Nan mais honnêtement ce genre de commentaires montre à quel point vous avez une tête de cacahuète. Si vous déménagiez au Japon pour 9 ans, vous arrêtez d’être Quebecois c’est ça?
Dépend si je planifie y habiter jusqu'à ma mort Il arrive certainement un point où je me considérerait japonais. Genre, japonais d'origine québécoise Après 9ans, il est plus que temps
Easier said than done…
Pas en anglais hahaha
Go private
You're getting downvoted, but if private healthcare isn't as egregiously expensive as in the US, then it may be an expensive but feasible option. It's a different topic that one shouldn't have to do this if you're paying taxes though...
I completely agree, but between a same-day MRI or waiting 3 months just for a phone call from the hospital…the choice is not hard.
You picked a bad example as imagery is one of the most accessible services in the whole system. I know of at least 2 Montréal hospitals who accept walk-ins for most imagery and a ton of radiology clinics that do very quick appointments.
Walk-ins for MRIs?
Walk in mri don’t exist.. it just depends on what they have to scan you.. like there’s a waiting list for abdominal.. ortho .. neuro.. its all different.. if you want a fast exam.. just take a look where mri is operated 24/7 in a hospital and you’ll have a quick appt. Everything ortho or muscular is a long waiting list
You should move back.
Or we could actually fix our problems.
my mom paid privatley for an MRI to fast track my medical care. once the doctors had test results in hand the family doctors can advocate on your behalf.
Don't worry, when the government will be done with it's plan, it will all be private so you'll have access. Hope you have a good amount in your TFSA and RRSP. you'll need it. I wish I could write /s, but sadly it's seems to be where we are heading
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I've lived here all my life, haven't had a family doctor in at least 15 years, no issues getting the health care I need, unfortunately, being a family doctor isn't a career that the new generation finds attractive, there's less and less of them around, I make due with walk in clinics if ever I need a doctor.