Comments on Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic: Fox News again uses Canada for Political Manipulat...

This just made me angry. Even if there are problem...

2011-03-07T01:39:38.777-05:00

This just made me angry. Even if there are problems with our healthcare system, it's not like America doesn't have its own.

At least here if I break my arm I'm not worried about paying fees to get it fixed. There may be a wait time, but it will be free.

An American I know refused to see a doctor about his sinus/ear infection (very serious issue that was causing a lot of pain) because he'd have to pay for the visit.

When your country's health care policy is not allowing sick people to get help because they can't afford it, and you are one of the richest countries in the world, I don't care what you say, something is wrong.

And Fox News doesn't make it any better -- what codswallop, and how horrible it must be for the parents to be turned into a public example for something that has nothing to do with their situation.

There are six comments before mine, and three of t...

2011-03-03T10:37:27.571-05:00

There are six comments before mine, and three of them are anonymous.

I turned on anonymous posting in the hopes that people wouldn't post anonymously just to attack me (or others).

People: Post with a pseudonym....anything at all that is consistent, or will remove the offending posts.

The last anonymous poster is coming very close to violating my commenting policy on jerks and CAPS.

Anon, just because you had a bad experience and ba...

2011-03-03T07:19:48.967-05:00

Anon, just because you had a bad experience and bad doctors does not reflect on the whole Canadian system. My uncle had a car accident and was to be in a vegetative state, the doctors said. My grandmother refused to give consent to pull the plug and they gave him excellent care and rehabilitated him and he is now able to walk and lead a semi-normal life. Your experience must be painful, but it is in no way a reflection of our health system at large. We can all individually pull up anecdotal evidence, or we can look at the facts: our health care system operates as well as it can on the very limited funds it is given by successive neoliberal governments both provincially and federally. It has nothing to do with a private vs. public health care debate.

How about YOU stop twisting things to your own age...

2011-03-02T16:50:34.819-05:00

How about YOU stop twisting things to your own agenda because I think her parents know better than you how and when she actually died.

The hospital ONLY offered the transport to them AFTER they fought (on the 28th of Feb) and NOT before hand. They did even OFFER to transport home at the CCB. He was to have his breathing tube removed IN HOSPITAL.

Ontario Superior Court's decision to deny the Maraachli family their appeal to bring their child home to die a peaceful death. Even then the hospital made NO ATTEMPTS to tell the family they would do it in their home. It was ordered that it would be removed with their forced consent IN HOSPITAL on Feb. 21st at 10am but the family STILL withheld consent. They have asked their family members to consent for them to have the tube removed IN HOSPITAL and failed. They than moved to ask the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee to remove it IN HOSPITAL.

It wasn't until the 28th that the hospital tried saying it was always an option. It NEVER was before that point.

Outstanding comments. very insightful. To cor...

2011-03-02T09:37:13.345-05:00

Outstanding comments. very insightful.

To correct above, their daughter died in a Windsor hospital after repeated pneumonias and at the end, after chest compressions.

In this case, the hospital offered to transport the child to allow for a peaceful death in their home. They rejected.

Anonymous, leave your own agenda out of this. Once again, a brilliant article.

It is most definitely not well researched. Their d...

2011-03-02T06:50:18.902-05:00

It is most definitely not well researched. Their daughter was more deteriorated than their son, received the trach, and went home and lived 6 months before peacefully dying in her father's arms.

These are the SAME DOCTORS who gave another dying child with "no hope", in the same ward in a bed beside him, a trach because "it's better if she dies at home". The mother has openly questioned this on his facebook group because her daughter was as bad as him and died shortly after being at home. She even argued against the tube because she didn't want her daughter to have it.

In many cases of "no hope" children they have argued to the "death board" to force the parents against their wishes to place trachs because it was in their best interest. Saying that it was no more painful than any other surgery, was routine and the best course of action, was more comfortable than the endo tube. Oh and yes there was a higher risk of infection but that could be treated with meds and shouldn't factor into the decision.

Canadian doctors have routinely disconnected or denied care to kids (and adults) with "no hope" and disabilities. My son for one with the amount of brain damage he had was to, at best, have spastic quadriplegia. Yes he's mainly in a wheelchair but his only "disability" is he can't walk right. He was not allowed proper therapy and was only allowed palliative therapy because intense therapy was futile. We, like many other parents here, paid for the therapy needed and he excelled. Next step is spinal surgery to cut the nerves that are preventing him from walking long periods (spasms). It was denied in Canada based on his dx, it did not matter how well he was doing or how he has overcome all obstacles and has done everything they said was impossible it was a no based on a dx written on a piece of paper. We now have to go to the USA and pay for the surgery.

This is also the same system that four times argued up and down he was "fine" and didn't need a chest x-ray only for them to do it because we wouldn't leave without one only for them to discover we were right, he had severe pneumonia. Argued once that the swelling in his face was an allergy reaction and they had no clue why his body temp and BP were low but they would give us antibiotics "just in case" they were wrong. We were phoned two days later and told he had an iGAS infection and needed to get back ASAP for assessment because the low body temp and BP were actually signs he was going into shock, the only thing they said saved him was the antibiotics we were giving him. We brought him in for blue spells and were told his EKG was "completely normal" only for the head of the ER to phone us a few days later after reviewing cases to tell us we needed to get him into cardiology ASAP because his heart was "way too fast". This is also the system that told us his hip and leg pain was because we weren't stretching him enough. It took SIX MONTHS and a routine x-ray for hip development for them to go "oops, his hip is actually dislocated".

Why not read about Annie Farlow who was killed by the hospital
http://www.whathappenedtoannie.com/index.html

Or how about Lisa Shore who the hospital suggested that her pain was "all in her head" and she should seek physiological counseling, it took 20K and a trip to a Boston hospital to get a diagnosis. Only for them to come home and one of our lovely hospitals to kill her. The coroner's inquest ruled "homicide"

http://www.lisashore.com/Media/Liberal/Liberal991012.pdf

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/02/25/homicide000225.html

This is a well researched, thoughtful and heart-wr...

2011-03-01T21:34:06.397-05:00

This is a well researched, thoughtful and heart-wrenching blogpost.

Thank you for exposing the venality and opportunism of FoxNews.

Really great post. Really disheartening, but very ...

2011-02-24T21:29:03.107-05:00

Really great post. Really disheartening, but very well done.