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A comment on How twitter helped a technology consultant escape from an evil hospital. Parent comment

Re:How twitter helped a technology consultant escape from an... by pyre on Sunday September 13, 2009 @08:19PM (#820809)
One of the problems in Canada (at least Ontario -- because healthcare is run by the province not the federal government) is people using the emergency room as a doctor's office. This is because regular practice doctor's are regulated on the number of patients they can see (this is an attempt to prevent doctors from seriously overbooking themselves with patients in an attempt act like a 'health factory' where patients are just pushed down an assembly-line) so people have a hard time getting an actual physician.

There are a couple of solutions to this, but no one really talks about them. (1) There are plenty of people that are qualified to be doctors, but because they did their medical school in India or China before immigrating to Canada, they aren't allowed to be certified as doctors. (2) Lots of doctors 'jump ship' to more profitable countries like the USA because they can just charge insurance and they aren't regulated from creating a 'factory practice' where no patient ever gets more than 5 minutes of the doctor's time.

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Re:How twitter helped a technology consultant escape from an... by joe_the_user on Sunday September 13, 2009 @10:03PM (#820943)
Uh,

In the US, a large number of people use the emergency room as a doctor's office because they have no other choice.

So, Canada: problematic. US: fail

But if Canada keeps using US logic, it might wind-up in our boat. Good luck to you...

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Re:How twitter helped a technology consultant escape from an... by pyre on Monday September 14, 2009 @04:03AM (#821300)
> In the US, a large number of people use the emergency room as a doctor's office because they have no other choice.

How do you mean though? I'm saying that people with flu/colds/UTI/etc just go to the emergency room instead of a doctor's office (or even walk-in clinics at times) in Canada. I've been without healthcare, but I spent most of my life on a good healthcare plan through my parents. I don't have much experience with people that are off of the healthcare system (the only time I've had friends that were 'poor'[1] was in Canada where they were still covered for healthcare and social assistance).

[1] By poor I mean, barely making any money and living off of welfare and/or living in subsidized housing. I don't mean starving/homeless, though I was a couple of 'degrees' away from people that were homeless.

> But if Canada keeps using US logic, it might wind-up in our boat.

How do you mean?

> Good luck to you...

I'm currently living in the US, but I was living in Ontario for a time. It just irks me when people start talking about the 'problems with the Canadian system' when it's not a unified system as I understand it. The same when people start talking about 'socialized medicine,' since every country that has such a system has a different take on it.

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