Health Care! Jobs!

If you have not heard, there is a growing interest in Canadian Immigration after the election. 1st State Pundit does not think this interest will bring about any serious exodus of Liberals to Canada, but it does give me the chance to discuss why liberals would be interested in Canada at all.

Canada is a socialist country, and there are two things that socialists have been clamoring for since the conception of The Revolution - Jobs and Health Care (sound familiar?).

Let's talk about health care.

From the way U.S. health care is presented in the left-wing media, it may seem to many liberals that our health care system is oppressive and cold hearted, and Canada's socialized system is caring and comprehensive. This is what is commonly referred to as dem·a·go·ging.
Any new liberal immigrants to Canada would soon find out, however, that while they do have free health coverage, they do not actually have the health care.

Take this article from last May:

Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Back
The Halifax Herald Limited

Medical mistakes Disturbing

Report links thousands of deaths to errors; chronic underfunding blamed

By BARRY DOREY / Staff Reporter

A study that found one in every 13 Canadians admitted to hospital experienced an "adverse event" during treatment is "disturbing," says a Nova Scotia health-care advocate.

But Ian Johnson said the numbers - an estimated 9,250 to 23,750 deaths in Canada a year linked to medical errors - are not completely surprising, given "years of chronic underfunding or understaffing."

The two-year survey looked at 3,745 randomly selected patient records from 20 hospitals in five provinces, including Nova Scotia.

It found one in 13, or 7.5 per cent, of patients who received care in hospitals suffered an adverse event in 2000 - and 37 per cent of those were preventable.

Adverse events ranged from an abdominal aneurysm that was diagnosed as kidney stones (the patient died) to a missed but obvious case of uterine cancer. Smaller mistakes that led to no injury or extended hospital stay were also logged.

Authors Ross Baker, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Peter Norton, a patient safety expert at the University of Calgary, cautioned that a causal link can't always be drawn between the adverse events and the deaths.

"We're saying the adverse events were preventable, and in some cases, they led to death," Mr. Baker said at a news conference last week.

"We're not trying to avoid the issue that a number of people - probably larger than most people think - die in Canadian hospitals and that they also experience adverse events."

end quote

note: this link has been taken down, I'm glad I saved the story

A 1 in 13 chance of an adverse event?!?!?!?!?!?

Here are more links to stories about socialized medicine. Arm yourself with knowledge and defeat your liberal friends and family on this topic.

Swedish PM to wait in line for hip operation


Dear America…
by Klaus Rohrich

If Canada's never sounded so good, this one's for you. Unpack the bag: Country is not all it's cracked up to be
By ALEX BEAM