A Typical, Fast, Efficient Canadian Health Care Experience

As many of my fellow Canadian bloggers can no doubt attest to, we are often flabbergasted at the ludicrous, incomprehensible, completely false stories that emanate from US GOP politicians, health care insurers and wacko right-wing media types about our Canadian Universal Health Care System. The health care system they describe is completely foreign to me and my entire family. You’ve probably all heard some of the scare stories yourself.

So, I’m not going to launch into a defensive post trying to explain why these critics are totally wrong. I don’t need to nor do I want to. It’s a waste of time. Instead, I’m simply going to relate an experience I’ve had over the past 2 days and the typical efficient way in which our health care system responded. I wasn’t the least bit surprised as this has always been my experience when requiring any kind of healthcare whether it’s a regular check-up, a problem or an emergency.

Late Monday afternoon, Paulette noticed a red sore on the right side of my nose that was partially hidden by the top rim of my eyeglasses. When she asked how long it had been there I told her “I don’t know, at least a couple of months, maybe more”. In no uncertain terms she told me to call and make an appointment to have it looked at. Having no choice, I phoned my doctor’s office at 3:45pm on Monday and was told I could come in the next morning (Tuesday) at 11:45am to have it checked out.

I showed up at my doctor’s office Wednesday morning at 11:40am and was ushered right into one of those small examination rooms to wait. My doctor walked in at 11:50am and after a brief chat he examined the sore and told me he was sure it was a Basal Cell Carcinoma. I wasn’t stunned by this as that’s kind of what I thought as I’d had two of these before. Still, one never likes to hear the word Cancer especially when its concerning oneself. Thankfully, he ruled out Melanoma.

Although he was quite certain it’s a Basal Cell that he said he could remove immediately using nitrogen freezing, my doctor said there was always the chance it might be a Squamous cell that would have to be surgically removed as they’re a little more serious. He decided to send me to a Dermatologist for a biopsy and to have her remove the cell no matter what it turned out to be. He told me the specialists office/clinic was setup to do the surgery along with a Plastic Surgeon to make any necessary cosmetic repairs. This seemed to be getting complicated.

Driving back home and realizing it was almost Oct. 1st, I began to wonder how long this was going to take to get done. We are set to depart for Palm Springs in late December so I was thinking this just might put a crimp into our plans. I needn't have worried.  At 3:30pm yesterday afternoon, just a few hours after leaving my doctor, I got a call from the Dermatologist's office asking if I could come in on Wednesday, Oct. 8th to have the suspect cell looked at?  “Heck yes”, I replied.

The receptionist told me the first appointment would be a short 15 minute affair as all the doctor would do that day was take a biopsy. The biopsy results would be back within 1 day and they would then call me to make a further appointment to do the actual procedure – either freezing nitrogen or surgical removal. She assured me that in either case I could expect this to be all taken care of in the next few weeks. That was a big relief.  

How’s that for our socialized, some say “commie”, health care system?  I can’t say I was too surprised by this as it’s exactly the kind of service I’ve been used to ever since Canada implemented our universal health care back in 1965. I’ve only had to see a specialist on 3 occasions in my entire life and it’s never taken longer than 3 weeks to get an appointment. As for my own doctor, I can always get to see him within a few days and immediately if its an emergency.

One more thing - I won’t be paying one penny out of my pocket for any of this as it’s all covered. The cost of our Universal Health Care comes out of taxes of course so it’s not like we get health care for free in Canada. But, I’m happy to pay whatever the cost is out of tax revenue for such excellent, timely and professional health care. The US critics of our system like to shout that Canadians are “taxed to death” because of Universal Health Care. Actually, that’s probably the biggest lie of all.

In 2015, Canadians will be going to the polls to elect a new federal government. While it seems that taxes are always a huge issue in American elections that’s not the case in Canada.  A national polling firm conducted a survey recently asking Canadians what their biggest election issues were for 2015.  As shown in the above graph and table below, here are the results:

These are the top 2015 Election Issues for Canadians

	Economy	34%
	Social Issues (health care/education)	31%
	Ethics and accountability	16%
	Fiscal issues (taxes and deficit)	11%

Taxes and the deficit came in dead last at 11% as an issue for Canadians.  Does that sound like we’re “taxed to death” in Canada? Social issues have always ranked ahead of taxes in Canada so it mystifies me where the critics of Universal Health Care are coming up with their numbers. I think I know where but I’m not going to say it here. We get tremendous value for our health care system and Canadians by a huge margin know that.

So, for my American friends, this is just one example of my own personal experience with our health care system as demonstrated by my first call for an appointment and the prompt and efficient way in which it is being handled. It’s always been the case for my entire family for my entire life. The stories we so often hear from uninformed right-wing critics are simply laughable.

Thanks for visiting!