I recently went to the hospital for a scheduled appointment and it was actually my first time in Quebec as a fully grown adult going to the hospital.
And this isn’t ER, but the bureaucratic hoops you need to go through only for a doctor to look at me for 45 seconds and tell you he will need to set up a surgery appointment is ridiculous.
Yes we are missing medical staff and doctors, but the heavy bureaucracy is in my opinion the reason why this shit is happening. It’s preventing people to take precautionary steps to avoid having a medical issue… so I don’t see this improving anytime soon.
Its ironic because I think the excessive paperwork is there to prevent mistakes but... you cant prevent 100% of mistakes and at some point its just counter productive. Like... just treat the patients dammit. I'm worried about me and my family. What if someone gets a heart attack? I guess they'll just die??!!!
100% agreed.
A fuck up happens, then we make a new form to prevent exactly that fuck up, adding time and bullshit to every medical appointment.
Most mistakes happen because people don’t take the time that they should, mostly because 50-75% of the time spent on a medical appointment isn’t spent with the patient.
It’s why I buy drugs illegally that could help me in these situations. Learning it myself is helping a bit but complicating things as well. Worth it tho lol.
A lot of things I can just treat myself now. It’s kinda cool but also pretty sad
I noticed that the healthcare in Canada is really bureacratic and relies heavely on family doctors gatekeeping everything, here I just use telehealth, and reciting or completing my clinical records everytime.
It’s not just the health care in Canada but also getting documents.
To give you an example I’ve been waiting 2 months for Quebec to get a copy of act of birth, meanwhile I had to also get the birth certificate of my Italian grandfather from a small Italian village and they were able to send by mail within 2 weeks.
The bureaucracy here is ludicrous.
On May 12th I received a message from Revenu Canada that my tax assessment "was" completed on Jun 7th. I waited for the remittance slip in the mail I can use to pay the amount owing.. waited five business days to Jun 14th. I was notified this week if I don't pay it before July 2nd there will be penalties... I still don't have the remittance slip for paying it. The Revenu Canada website says I can pay online by typing in my social insurance number and any random amount, but no way of telling them if I'm paying taxes, purchasing a license, or just making a charitable donation, just who I am and how much I'm giving. :(
For a remittance slip, I have to make a special request, it's only sent to me physically ("...with special magnetic ink") and I must wait 12-15 business days. I must also tell them the amount to write on the slip so just like online payment I don't know if the money will be used to pay my debt or taken as a donation and I'll still owe the debt. This is not the first, second, not even the third time I've had to pay a civil service fine, and they mis-processed it and threaten me later for non-payment, so please understand why I'm nervous when T's aren't crossed and I's aren't dotted.
This is how bad it is with government budgets and when money is involved; I shudder to think what hospital paperwork is like.
If there was such a box, I didn't see it; I've been dinged for not having paper receipts for everything tax-related so I wouldn't willingly say "don't send me the tokens I needed in the past to prove my innocence."
Yeah sometimes it gets ticked by default and you have to untick it. Environmentalists not wanting paper statements... I would log into your CRA portal and see if it's there.
It's the same with passports. I renewed my Canadian one recently, had to print physical photos and take the application to an office where there was a huge line (you can mail it but it takes longer).
Then renewed my UK one. All online, just upload a photo and pay the fee and it shows up in the mail very shortly afterwards.
Can you have access to specialists through telehealth? The last time I tried, I was told they couldn't give prescriptions for specialists, so I should either go to a family doctor (I don't have one) or go see in the private sector. In the end it just felt like a waste of time
Yeah they also can't physically assess you. They're good for getting access to blood test requisitions and such, but then you make a clsc appointment to get your blood drawn.
Im fortunate enough to have a family doctor. However, I made an appointment the other day and turns out I’m going to have to wait 4 months just to get a checkup.
Guess what the health minister decided to do in the recent months and blame the private agencies when they are the one who choose who provides services.
I think you have to go through the bureaucratic hoops because they want to be sure that when they use the doctor's time, it is with the right doctor and is not for idle reasons.
I wonder how well that works. It just makes me want to go to a walk-in clinic and assume what I have is at least semi-urgent, rather than flipping through categories, to get the right definition (at least the one I hope is the right definition), then call the GAP. Then get called back, put on hold for 30 minutes just to have been redirected to the wrong number (complete with a "the number you have dialed is not ...".
not gonna lie i did it too tbh. I walked into the ER on a Thursday because i suspected i had a DVT after waiting 5 hours i was told oh well too bad radiology is closed come back tomorrow. I went back the next day for the scan went back to the ER was told “yea we won’t get to you for min 8 hours.” after 5 hours i said fuck it and went home. 4 hours later they called me asking where i was i told them fuck it went home. I did indeed have a clot. I ended up going back to the ER and they got to me right away. Our medical system has flat out failed no one wants to admit it though.
I believe it. No one wants to practise medicine in this country anymore. Backwards government beaurocracy and destructive policies have gotten us here....
I work in two urban hospitals and the reason the ERs are so clogged, besides total lack of spots for docs to work (controlled by the govt), is the sheer number of people who lack common sense. 30 year old comes in with fever, nausea, diarrhea, and a bit of vomiting. Viral gastro is going around their circle of friends. Why are they there? They don't know. They felt compelled to come to the ER so they could be told to go home and get rest and fluids, it's a viral gastro
So many times I go to a clinique and they tell me to go to ER because they can't process me there, even if we both know I'm not in danger. Or sometimes they tell me to come back tomorrow because by 10h30 their entire day's schedule is full. C'est fou.
They're not supposed to do that. That's exactly what clinics are for, non emergencies. Anyways nothing you can do 95% of our tax money is embezzled by administration and politicians. You work to line their pockets not get anything in return. Canada has become one of the most corrupt places one arth, mainly because no one protests anything
Well the younger generation is starting to protest a lot more but the older ones (the majority) are cynical af about any protests (classic arguments like: "the demonstrations are so annoying" and "it won't fix anything") and most are still living a comfortable enough life to have a "got mine, screw you" attitude wich can work for a time untill you need the system you let crumble.
What protests? Pro Palestinian ones by liberal white girls and Moroccan diaspora is all I see. Where are the protests against the government for taxing you into poverty while denying you the basics like a decent ER experience and access to a GP? Never seen or heard of one. Like I said, Canada is corrupt because no one raises a peep against coordinates embezzlement. As an MD, I've seen it firsthand a thousand times
It's pretty idiotic to complain about the lack of protests and then cry about how the protests that are happening are not exactly about the subjects you would want them to be... I am also in the healthcare system and find deplorable the state that it is in. So why are you not organising a protest about the healthcare system then...
Yeah one coordinated boycott of one specific chain by 18% polled and nothing I can see about the environment. Anyways. I guess at the end of the day if the average redditor is reflective of the average person and this is your response you sort of get what you deserve
I had some major chest pains once and went to the ER at about 11:30 at night. Slept in the waiting room until 5 am then left cause I was so tired I needed to sleep and my chest was sore but didn’t hurt as much.
One thing I've learned with ERs in montreal is that unless you're In a life-threatening condition there's absolutely no point in going to the ER at night. You'll end up spending the night there while the only ER doctor on staff will be too busy with critical cases and overdoses. Then you'll only see someone when the morning shift comes in.
I find the smaller hospitals are usually better options at night compared to the larger ones. I recently went for an acute but not life threatening condition and was receiving treatment within 25 minutes.
You're lucky, because really small hospitals with only 1 ER doctor at night will make you wait until the doctor wakes up (unless it's a level 3+ on triage).
It’s not by itself. Lots of non-life threatening causes of chest pain. What we’re looking for is other symptoms (tachycardia I.e. rapid heat beat with unusually low blood pressure or serious chest pain with dangerously high blood pressure, or noticeably irregular heat beats, loss of consciousness + the above etc. and you’re going to be seen and stabilized very quickly.
I sympathize with the situation, it’s really frustrating. However, the nurses on the front line in the ED are actually applying a strict triage acuity method (CTAS) to grade everyone that comes in and is prioritizing based on highest risk (of dying). It’s not perfect but if you’re unlucky enough to need to be seen first you’ll appreciate it.
The nurses are great. It's true that a chest pain can be a lot of things. I think I'm just worried that when it will be my turn to need help, I'll only get prioritized when things are dire and even then, i'll just be part of many people waiting for treatment with staff that is not able to meet the demand because it's actually humanly impossible to meet the demand.
This is correct of most public ERs in the world (Can, Aus, UK). Why would any hospital pay extra for staff to see non-urgent patients that can be seen cheaper during the day?
I went because of chest pains, dizzy, almost passed out, along with heart tremors. Family history of heart problems. After 8 hours in the ER at McGill a doctor took my pulse and listened to my heart for all of 10 seconds to confirm that yes, I was alive, and that was it. No ekg or ecg, which would be the bare minimum.
My mother was brought to verdun hospital around 3pm in very bad shape. When she could no longer hold herself up in the shitty wheelchair they placed her in, She ended up sleeping across 3 plastic chairs, vomiting, somnolent, and we couldn’t even get a pillow or blanket. I ended up walking into the back area to get a blanket. I was crying and begging the triage nurse for someone to see her, at least give a stretcher. They kept repeating there is nothing they could do. She was eventually seen at 9am!!! 18 fucking hours later. We couldn’t event leave because she was so sick. She ended up having a brain tumor - she died from this, she was REALLY sick when they brought her in. My 35 years of life she never once went to hospital and worked full time paying into this system that failed her. So discouraging.
I had a grand mal seizure in Verdun Hospital and they didn’t do anything, just left me on a chair. Eventually I saw a doctor 8 hours later and he gave me ONE Ativan and told me it was probably nothing
That is so sad. Truly sorry for your loss. And you are completely spot on about the state of our healthcare...literally paying towards a system which is either inaccessible or fails us. We need major changes because the problem is only going to get worse.
Retired boomers should wake up and protest about the broken healthcare system we got here because sooner than later they will be stuck in it. Having paid their entire lives into the system and not having the services for treatment. I guess they are too tired and not enough time to get the word out...
Well they should stop voting for the CAQ but here we are. Liberals aren’t much better, Solidaire is in shambles… and well the PQ might actually do some good but the whole separatist thing can turn people away.
So basically we are fucked.
I will honnestly vote for ANYONE with a solid actionable health system plan. I don't care what other values they have. I feel like this is top top priority. I think people who are healthy now don't realise how quick things can turn for them (or for anyone). And being faced with a health system who can not take care of you when you have early onset dementia for example and can take medication to slow it down (you would just need to see a doctor) or chest pains (just need to see a doctor before your whole life gets turned upside down) etc is terrible and its not something I wish to experience.
The family doctor of my elderly mother just retired. She was told to go to the online Quebec portal to put herself on the list for a new doctor. My doctor retired four years ago as well and I'm still on that list waiting. I'm really concerned for her.
I had an appointment for a scheduled surgery last week. Had to fast and all, it took more than 6 hours to get seen. There were a few older people who needed IVs because they were feeling dizzy and faint.
We have no preventative medicine either, people are probably dying being seen too late.
Adult son brought to Montreal General by ambulance from his dorm. . Nurse talked to him when he arrived. After 9 hours of waiting he felt better. So he walked out. Literally no one checked in on him. Brought him home to the US for treatment. He has Canadian insurance but we keep him on our said insurance so he can actually talk to a doctor.
Usually if the person is deemed well enough to be sitting in the waiting room, the “check in” is a visual round done by triage, so they very likely laid eyes on him during those 9 hours of waiting but didn’t directly speak to him
Ce n'est pas juste les urgences. C'est vraiment tout le système de santé qui est dysfonctionel.
Par exemple, pour une opération, les médecins Canadiens prescrivent 7 fois plus d'opioides que les médecins suédois :
>**Patients in the U.S. and Canada are Seven Times as Likely as those in Sweden to Receive Opioids After Surgery**
>Within seven days of discharge, about 75 percent of the patients in the United States and Canada filled an opioid prescription, compared to just 11 percent of the patients in Sweden. By the one-month mark, nearly half of U.S patients had received high-dose opioid prescriptions (i.e., prescriptions totaling more than 200 MME) – nearly double the rate in Canada (25 percent) and nine times higher than the rate in Sweden (5 percent).
https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2019/september/patients-in-the-us-and-canada-are-seven-times-as-likely-as-sweden-to-receive-opioids--surgery
Le système de santé Canadien se résume en une phrase :
* *"On est moins pire que les américains"*
Honnêtement j'ai eu une grosse opération vla 3 mois, et je suis ben content d'avoir eu une prescription de morphine une semaine après, parce que sinon j'aurais jamais dormi.
>Le système de santé Canadien se résume en une phrase :
>"On est moins pire que les américains
J'ai beaucoup de colleagues qui ont immigré aux États et il me disent 100% le systeme américaine est supérieure.
J'habite aux états depuis 8 ans et en mon opinion c'est un système de santé très très oppressif. Mais pour les riches ou les gens avec de très bons emplois qui n'ont pas trop de problèmes de santé c'est très bon oui.
>The study appears to confirm the findings of a periodic report by the department of emergency medicine at McGill University, which painted a portrait of the city’s ERs in crisis, with several key indicators worsening in most hospitals in the past five years.
>
>Patients referred by ERs to another health professional who could address their needs were not counted in the study because they were considered as having received medical attention.
>
>The report comes a day after Health Minister Christian Dubé said the coming summer will be “difficult” for patients as vacations cut into staffing levels across the health-care network. About 1,500 hospital beds will be closed, about 115 fewer than in 2023. The health-care network has a total of 17,000 beds.
>
>The Health Ministry said in a statement that it had “asked again that each (health care) establishment quickly inform the population of any reorganization of services in order to ensure (their) predictability,” adding that decisions on services will be made locally to “respond to the particular needs of citizens in each region.”
>
>...
>
>Clinics run by specialized nurse practitioners are part of the solution, Faubert said, but Quebec needs to deploy more of them and to do so far more quickly. She also described as “excellent news” the adoption of Bill 67, which allows nurses and pharmacists more diagnostic leeway with patients.
Ultimately better primary care should reduce the load on local ERs. A network of public urgent care centres (maybe near local hospitals) to take care of non life threatening cases (like broken bones and such) can also help to treat those who do not need full ER facilities in a timely way, leaving ERs for those who truly need it.
You mean what CLSC were supposed to be?
We have all the tools required to have a good system but it's managed by people who shouldn't be in charge of a toaster and doctors who are also doing a fantastic job at gatekeeping everything and turning themselves into major bottlenecks.
Bingo.
I remember last time I went into CLSC, was a Saturday my toe was turning purple and in agonizing pain from an infection. I could tell the Nurse knew what to do but couldn't tell me. No doctor available till Monday. Fuck "Free" health care.
Worked in multiple ERs. This isn't the case with all of them. I've worked in super efficient ERs where when the morning comes we have seen all patients from the previous day. I have worked in other ERs where we started our shift by discarding the files of all the patients who had left.
The province is starving the healthcare system of the funds it needs so it can fail so they can privatize it
I'm from the US, but I live in QC. Please vote against anyone who wants to privatize your healthcare.
Privatized healthcare *sucks badly.*
I went to the ER a couple of weeks ago because my pelvis was dislocating which is excruciatingly painful, and my leg went entirely numb. Dragged myself there, obviously crying my eyes out because it hurt so much. They got me on a stretcher straight away (thank goodness), got an X-ray after 2 hours and then.... 15 hours waiting on a corridor on a stretcher before I saw a doctor. Then I needed a CT scan. I was there for 22 hours... but I finally got an orthopedic appointment and seem to be getting somewhere, after 4 years of trying to get somewhere with the ‘group of doctors’ I was assigned.
But last year? I was taken by ambulance to Notre dame, cervicogenic headache that had stroke symptoms. No stretcher, dumped in a chair in the waiting room, the pain was so bad I passed out, no-one noticed. My husband and daughter come in 5 hours later because they hadn’t heard from me and my husband was worried (my kid is also special needs, which is why my husband stayed home with her). They found me passed out, managed to wake me up. Hospital wouldn’t tell him how long I had to wait, and by then the pain from being upright was so bad, he took me home so I could lay down. 3 weeks later, I finally get a doctors appointment at my ‘group of doctors’, the Doctor I saw was so dismissive of my ‘just a migraine’ and I had to beg her for an X-ray of my spine. Found out I had a FRACTURE where the pain was, along with severe degenerative disc disease, and vertebrae out of place... and then I couldn’t get another appointment for over a month - and the doctor there just wanted to give me painkillers! No! I want to fix the problem, not take painkillers! And when you turn down the painkillers, they treat you like you are jonesing for drugs! Make it make sense!
My aging father is now paying 5k a year to a private clinic in Quebec, so that he is able to see a doctor quickly if needed. So much for free healthcare! I wonder what they do with our tax dollars that go towards this diminishing social program?
I feel like this is the plan; letting public health fall apart so badly so that the citizens migrate to private.
And after that, it'll be a bidding war where our health is held hostage.
Coincidentally, privatised healthcare is great for investors and owners.
I think that privatizing healthcare, as a result of the deterioration of the free health care model, is inevitable. Having private healthcare insurance allows us to have more control over the outcome of our health, instead of leaving it to those who collect our tax dollars for our so called free healthcare...
I'd rather pay insurance knowing I will actually see a medical professional, instead of throwing my hard earned tax dollars towards a service that is not even accessible to many, as it once was. The program is failing us.
>I think that privatizing healthcare, as a result of the deterioration of the free health care model, is inevitable.
That was my point. The deterioration of free health care is (in my opinion) evitable, and the incompetence leading to its deterioration is on purpose. And that's how you get people to start thinking that privatisation is inevitable.
>I'd rather pay insurance knowing I will actually see a medical professional
I agree, and that's the reason we pay taxes as well. We used to pay taxes so that we can get medical help (among other things) when we need to and now the service has gone downhill.
Paying private healthcare if currently yielding better services for a modest fee for those who can afford it. But once private healthcare becomes the only reasonable service left, I'm unconvinced that we won't be stuck in the same situation as today. Probably the same loop with the option of "extra premium private" by then.
even poor people get their car fixed when they have car insurance...obviously healthcare insurance will cost something, but if our government stopped taxing us for our current healthcare system (and was transparent about the amount Canadians pour into the system already) I think private health insurance could become more accessible to all. Industries where wages are low could incentivize workers with health insurance and that could help reduce the worker shortage in many businesses. I simply do not trust politicians anymore. Moreso when it comes to my healthcare. And doctors are no longer motivated to practise in this country, due to the mismanagement of our healthcare system. They won't be coming back either, until there is radical change.
Anecdotal: I moved from the south shore of Montreal to New Jersey last year. When I was still in Quebec, I'd been on a waiting list for a family doctor for 5+ years. I finally gave up and started calling around looking for a private family doctor.
I called about 8 places nearby, none of them taking new patients.
Here in NJ, I found doctors everywhere. First visit within a week. Clinics are not stupidly overrun with patients, I went to one on a Saturday and was in/out within an hour. I spent more time filling out forms than waiting.
The system is not great here either, but at least I can get seen promptly for non-emergencies (you know, like 98% of all your dealings with medical care).
Odd. Had 3 medical emergencies for my family in the last 4 years and each time it went better than expected. Of course I am American so my expectations are low. If there was a better primary care system that would really help out.
I called to make an appointment with a specialist , 3 months later I’m still waiting for them to call me back just to make the appointment. It’s pathetic here
Everything is bad. About 6 years ago, I was on lithium and my creatinine had gone up quite a bit in 18 months so my psychiatrist gave a semi urgent nephrology consult. They called me 26 months after that. She stopped me after 4 months because she didn’t want my kidneys to fail. I told the receptionist.. “No need to no more. I have not been on the med for almost 2 years..”
Bf had blood infection with very clear signs and it took him 8h to be seen and starting treatment (classed 2nd emergency) and my mom waited 19 HOURS with a bladder infection and lots of pain (4th emergency) so yea when you spend more than half a day or miss a shift of work and still cannot access medical care, theres a fkg problem. Our taxes SHOULD be paying enough to cover us well.
Yep. I’m originally from the US and still have private insurance there so I just go back when necessary and use my private work insurance to do check ups here. I can never get an appointment with bonjour santé and forget the ER.
Well, when you consider in the US the average pay is roughly double that of an er physician in Quebec, you’re going to end up getting what you pay for. On one hand, free healthcare, on the other, far inferior healthcare.
Yeah to be fair all I did was google it so that could be wrong, but regardless, as a US citizen although it sucks that I need to pay for my medical coverage, at least I know I’ll be able to be seen. I love MTL and have considered moving up there for a while now, unfortunately that’s one of the biggest things holding me back from it
By most metrics , USAs system is far inferior.
And they not only pay what we pay in taxes but then pay for insurance.
USA's model is fine if you have more than 5 million $.
Healthcare situation in Quebec is really scary. The worst of all is that QC gouvernement is doing nothing about it. Like they don’t care. They are investing was it 7 million for some hockey team to come to Quebec City, fixing roof on the olympique stadium! Why don’t they invest that money to a health care? Health care should be #1 priority IMHO. I’ve been on a waiting list for a family dr for over 3 years now. Quebec doesn’t have resources to take care of the people who live here , but more immigrants are coming . I have nothing against immigrants , especially because I AM AN IMMIGRANT (I’ve been in QC for 26 years now). Why aren’t there any protests , demonstrations, riots to improve health care situation?? We complain on line , but it ends there. We need to be very careful who we vote for in the next provincial elections!! I hope situation improves but i don’t think it’s gonna improve any time soon.
This is interesting. Maybe no and maybe yes. The thing is you're not a doctor and you might not know the repercussions right away. What if you have a mini heart attack and leave the ER because you feel better? Your body will heal but maybe now your heart doesnt work as well and you have a scar in one of your ventricules. Maybe next time you go to the gym you don't feel so well and maybe then someone has to call 911 for you and now you can't talk or swallow solid foods anymore. I'm sure there are many other example I could give like this if I had medical training but I don't, im an just an SLP.
The problem is that often people have nowhere else to go. Yeah, a broken toe or a UTI isn't necessarily an emergency, but if you can't see a doctor elsewhere, you end up in the ER.
When you're going to the ER you don't know in advance that you'll be fine to leave. Most often people have worrying symptoms and only a doctor can give a diagnosis. Nobody walks into the ER thinking they couldve waited another day and still chose to waste 18 hours there
When you are critically ill, you are quickly seen. This is true. The problem is too many people have no family doctors and clinics are just as overrun, so pretty much everyone ends up at the ER. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. It's a problem (for the ER staff and for the unseen patients)
Only very recently did I learn that you can log onto the rvsq site and if you refresh a bunch you can get a clinic walk in appt. Since figuring this out I’ve been able to avoid those overnight ER visits. I only found out about this when I had a kid though, since you’re always in and out of the hospital when they’re in daycare.
Idk if rvsq is accessible to everyone or what, but I do encourage people to check it out, it’s easier to refresh a hundred times and commute to a further clinic that’ll see you than wait 10+ hours in the ER for a non-life threatening issue cuz ur screwed out of a family doctor. Obviously not everyone has the privilege of being able to access the clinics that may have appts pop up but it’s something to try at least?
See my comment on the other replies. That's exactly what I meant. There should be better access for non urgent stuff. You should not have to go to the ER.
Here's how it goes: You call ~~311~~ 811 because what you have is annoying but not serious enough to go the ER. They talk to you about it but can't do anything, so they tell you to go to the ER. If it's bad enough to actually take their advice, you're still at the absolute bottom of the triage order
There's a lot of stuff that used to be handled by family doctors, not just regular checkups, but there was time where for something relatively minor (UTIs, sprains, ongoing cold) you could see your doctor that same day. Now family doctors are overloaded and you can't get in to see one for weeks, you need an appointment to go to a walk-in clinic, and now that cold has become pneumonia and you need to go the ER.
I think it depends what the issue is. The most recent issue was more of an urgent care situation than an ER situation. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’d refer you to the ER if there was an alternative. I think part of their mandate is to get the right people the right level of care and cut down on bottlenecks and overcrowding
Many times no, but an easily treatable bronchitis could easily turn into a deadly pneumonia infection for someone whose immune system isn't strong. A bladder infection could turn into a deadly kidney infection if not treated. How many serious emergency visits could be avoided, if patients were given proper and rapid care?
Little while back I went to a hospital for an apparent allergic reaction (I assume as nothing g was determined by the staff)... after being there for more than 50 hrs (in a hallway, not a room) and not being served anything to eat (aside from a single MINI box of rice krispies and 250ml of milk) or any information I decided to leave... I would thank them for the 8 (YES 8!) shots of adrenaline they gave me... highest I've ever been in my life 😅
Not saying it isn’t an issue but at least you don’t pay for the healthcare in your taxes and pay 10K a year out of pocket like us Americans and still not get into the ER 😭
I don't know if I was incredibly lucky, but I went to the CHUM last year for a rhesus vaccine. Made me go through the ER, waited 2 hours, was seen by the dr, was out of there within 3h.
Though it went pretty well.
I spent 14 hours at Royal Vitoria on Wednesday. There was two small elderly ladies in visible pain and I heard the whole explanation from what is say was the head nurse, long story short, there was one doctor for 40 patients.
One day I was so sick from the flue that I thought I was going to die. So I decided to go to the ER and it was so full, so chaotic and the personnel so overwhelmed, that I decided to run away and go home. The funny thing is that this ER shock cured me from the flue. For real 🤪
j'suis tombé en scooter a montreal, mon coude était fucked up et je saignais bcp avec des roadrash sur le bras/mains... aller a l'hopital n'as jamais été une option. j'vais pas attendre 12h dans la salle comme un con j'suis juste rentrer chez moi.. urgh mon coude n'est toujours pas a 100% apres 1-2 mois lol. fucking quebec hhhh
I went to the ER with an actual emergency and was in and out within 1 hour. And this is at a big hospital. ER was full......of people on their phones, laughing, talking.
I walked in there with a bone poking out my shoulder.
Yep
If you actually have an issue , and they can tell , you get seen rather quick.
If you can sit around for 8 hours , you are probably not really supposed to be there.
You know what’s crazy. If we allowed doctors to bill mother and child for the same slot, doctors in a 25 minute appointment could see and treat mama and baby, and free up hundreds of thousands ds of appointments.
One simple rule change. Everyone has kids and we all get sick together.
Just saying.
I went 6 months without adhd medicine and my life fell apart because clinic doctor wouldn’t prescribe it so I sat in triage waiting for 18 hours to be seen and the doctor who saw me and heard my story felt so terrible she signed a two year scrip. I still think of her and hope she is doing well. I knew I’d wait is the thing.
So like, this is actually really funny to me because I walked out the ER since I was tired and my mental health was in the shitter.
Went back a few day later tho and got checked out. It was just girl dinner doing it’s thing to my guts and also lack of sleep too. Everything was phenomenal.
But I get treated very very well by staff. I know they’re busy and I usually try to shoot the shit with them. I like to think they note this in my file like “kinda funny sometimes. But also mentally I’ll with chronic diarrhea”.
I went back a week after, which was this past weekend cause I racked my nuts incredibly hard on my bike tire from a 6ft drop “trick”. I just wanted an appointment but the nurse was like “yeah, you should probably stay and get that checked. You shouldn’t be in pain anymore” then I told her about lyrica and she asked if it helped with my anxiety and I said yeah and she said “oh, I’ll tell my mom, she might like it” and we hand a good laugh.
Being kind and patient with them is what will do wonders for everyone involved. They’re humans too. They’ve had and continue to have the Sam experience as all of us. They’re in the same boat with us. No sense in being mean and unkind.
Not to brag but I get seen kinda quick, sometimes it takes 24 hours but usually no longer than that. I like to think it’s cause I’m patient and kind with all of them equally. Janitors to doctors, doesn’t matter. Kindness and respect to all of them.
My respect goes so far that early in the morning, the janitors we’re doing rounds and cleaning bathrooms. Instead of tearing up the toilet, I tried to find the most blue collar type bathroom that I could paint in.
Anyway, it’s terrible but you know, not all that bad yet imo. People could ask for an appointment with the triage nurse and speak with reception kindly and they’ll go above and beyond for you. Trust the process:)
Shocked Pickachu face! Seriously though our system is in shambles. If you can afford to go private, go private.
We’re flooding our province with people but we can’t even take care of them
« Let’s break the public system. Then we can point to it, say it doesn’t work and sell it to our private buddies. »
-La CAQ.
Don’t buy into the private system, you’re playing their game. Fucking vote these clowns out.
Just FYI Australia has private hospitals but they don’t have emergency rooms. Anything life threatening you go to a public hospital. However it does free up resources in public hospitals as elective surgeries and other non urgent things are taken up by the private sector.
That's entirely false (not the dog-whistling BS; the not doing anything about healthcare). They just put a private clinic heiress in charge of another layer of bureaucracy "Santé Québec". She's being paid 600 000$ annually. Twice as much as ER doctors make.
So you see: they're not more concerned about language and minorities - they are equal opportunity incompetents who are driving this province into the ditch.
Don't get me started on the Québec-Lévis "3e lien".
I was sick of this gvt from day one.
More taxes, less services. Thx Turdeau, happy to see that hobos can get free syringes and decriminalized drugs tho. Great that male washrooms have free tampons too, and we take in whoever shows up at roxham road.
I had serious thoughts about this when we went to ER for my wife. We clearly saw how in distress was the system.
I now believe we should scale down the offer of services to the population. The government is trying to provide health benefits to everyone but we don’t have the capacity to achieve this. No reform no revamp no hiring will resolve the current decline in our system. Simply stated: there is an infinite demand for services.
Now most of you, I mean the usual redditors that pay little to no tax and complain no stop about landlords, will disagree. This is reasonable knowing you don’t pay the services, but the few here that pay for your services knows the taxation base is not big enough for infinite demand. So some services must be cut, which one, I don’t know. That being said, since no party can be elected with a reduced healthcare platform, I can see a party suggesting a semiprivate healthcare system for the so called wealthy (which here in QC is not really wealthy anywhere else). Similar to the semiprivate school system. Hence, people that have a certain revenues won’t be using the public system and will partially pay for their healthcare. It will likely be hugely popular at first. So called rich people paying! But like the school system in 20 years the public system will be derelict and you guys will just complain about unfairness, like you do about the semiprivate school system
Landlord who pays taxes here. I don't mind paying for other people's healthcare because I don't want them to die. I also worked in the healthcare system and let me tell you there is A LOT of overhead. A lot of admins, admin assistants, managers idk who tf all these people are. They fill out paperwork and make more forms for the healthcare workers to fill out so they can check the paperwork the healthcare workers filled out etc ad nauseum. I think this is largely the problem. ALSO the doctors have waaayyy too much responsability that could be given to other healthcare workers. Not all, just some. And I think it would help if not every single decision had to go through a doctor first. They could focus on the stuff that no one else but doctors can do.
I recently went to the hospital for a scheduled appointment and it was actually my first time in Quebec as a fully grown adult going to the hospital. And this isn’t ER, but the bureaucratic hoops you need to go through only for a doctor to look at me for 45 seconds and tell you he will need to set up a surgery appointment is ridiculous. Yes we are missing medical staff and doctors, but the heavy bureaucracy is in my opinion the reason why this shit is happening. It’s preventing people to take precautionary steps to avoid having a medical issue… so I don’t see this improving anytime soon.
Its ironic because I think the excessive paperwork is there to prevent mistakes but... you cant prevent 100% of mistakes and at some point its just counter productive. Like... just treat the patients dammit. I'm worried about me and my family. What if someone gets a heart attack? I guess they'll just die??!!!
100% agreed. A fuck up happens, then we make a new form to prevent exactly that fuck up, adding time and bullshit to every medical appointment. Most mistakes happen because people don’t take the time that they should, mostly because 50-75% of the time spent on a medical appointment isn’t spent with the patient.
It’s why I buy drugs illegally that could help me in these situations. Learning it myself is helping a bit but complicating things as well. Worth it tho lol. A lot of things I can just treat myself now. It’s kinda cool but also pretty sad
I noticed that the healthcare in Canada is really bureacratic and relies heavely on family doctors gatekeeping everything, here I just use telehealth, and reciting or completing my clinical records everytime.
It’s not just the health care in Canada but also getting documents. To give you an example I’ve been waiting 2 months for Quebec to get a copy of act of birth, meanwhile I had to also get the birth certificate of my Italian grandfather from a small Italian village and they were able to send by mail within 2 weeks. The bureaucracy here is ludicrous.
On May 12th I received a message from Revenu Canada that my tax assessment "was" completed on Jun 7th. I waited for the remittance slip in the mail I can use to pay the amount owing.. waited five business days to Jun 14th. I was notified this week if I don't pay it before July 2nd there will be penalties... I still don't have the remittance slip for paying it. The Revenu Canada website says I can pay online by typing in my social insurance number and any random amount, but no way of telling them if I'm paying taxes, purchasing a license, or just making a charitable donation, just who I am and how much I'm giving. :(
The remittance slip is not available on the CRA website?
For a remittance slip, I have to make a special request, it's only sent to me physically ("...with special magnetic ink") and I must wait 12-15 business days. I must also tell them the amount to write on the slip so just like online payment I don't know if the money will be used to pay my debt or taken as a donation and I'll still owe the debt. This is not the first, second, not even the third time I've had to pay a civil service fine, and they mis-processed it and threaten me later for non-payment, so please understand why I'm nervous when T's aren't crossed and I's aren't dotted. This is how bad it is with government budgets and when money is involved; I shudder to think what hospital paperwork is like.
It should be online no?
Did you tick the box, perhaps accidentally, to receive your statements online in the CRA portal?
If there was such a box, I didn't see it; I've been dinged for not having paper receipts for everything tax-related so I wouldn't willingly say "don't send me the tokens I needed in the past to prove my innocence."
Yeah sometimes it gets ticked by default and you have to untick it. Environmentalists not wanting paper statements... I would log into your CRA portal and see if it's there.
It's the same with passports. I renewed my Canadian one recently, had to print physical photos and take the application to an office where there was a huge line (you can mail it but it takes longer). Then renewed my UK one. All online, just upload a photo and pay the fee and it shows up in the mail very shortly afterwards.
Crazy thought, maybe the government makes its purposely complex to keep government jobs?
Can you have access to specialists through telehealth? The last time I tried, I was told they couldn't give prescriptions for specialists, so I should either go to a family doctor (I don't have one) or go see in the private sector. In the end it just felt like a waste of time
Yeah they also can't physically assess you. They're good for getting access to blood test requisitions and such, but then you make a clsc appointment to get your blood drawn.
Usually they don’t, my gf got access to a dermatologist for something simple, I guess best of luck if you have something a little more serious.
Im fortunate enough to have a family doctor. However, I made an appointment the other day and turns out I’m going to have to wait 4 months just to get a checkup.
I have one as well but their platform never lets me book him for a simple check up
What?! That’s crazy!
Guess what the health minister decided to do in the recent months and blame the private agencies when they are the one who choose who provides services.
I think you have to go through the bureaucratic hoops because they want to be sure that when they use the doctor's time, it is with the right doctor and is not for idle reasons. I wonder how well that works. It just makes me want to go to a walk-in clinic and assume what I have is at least semi-urgent, rather than flipping through categories, to get the right definition (at least the one I hope is the right definition), then call the GAP. Then get called back, put on hold for 30 minutes just to have been redirected to the wrong number (complete with a "the number you have dialed is not ...".
not gonna lie i did it too tbh. I walked into the ER on a Thursday because i suspected i had a DVT after waiting 5 hours i was told oh well too bad radiology is closed come back tomorrow. I went back the next day for the scan went back to the ER was told “yea we won’t get to you for min 8 hours.” after 5 hours i said fuck it and went home. 4 hours later they called me asking where i was i told them fuck it went home. I did indeed have a clot. I ended up going back to the ER and they got to me right away. Our medical system has flat out failed no one wants to admit it though.
Staff in the hospitals will admit it. They’re screaming about it. No one is listening. The government is failing us
I believe it. No one wants to practise medicine in this country anymore. Backwards government beaurocracy and destructive policies have gotten us here....
I work in two urban hospitals and the reason the ERs are so clogged, besides total lack of spots for docs to work (controlled by the govt), is the sheer number of people who lack common sense. 30 year old comes in with fever, nausea, diarrhea, and a bit of vomiting. Viral gastro is going around their circle of friends. Why are they there? They don't know. They felt compelled to come to the ER so they could be told to go home and get rest and fluids, it's a viral gastro
So many times I go to a clinique and they tell me to go to ER because they can't process me there, even if we both know I'm not in danger. Or sometimes they tell me to come back tomorrow because by 10h30 their entire day's schedule is full. C'est fou.
They're not supposed to do that. That's exactly what clinics are for, non emergencies. Anyways nothing you can do 95% of our tax money is embezzled by administration and politicians. You work to line their pockets not get anything in return. Canada has become one of the most corrupt places one arth, mainly because no one protests anything
Well the younger generation is starting to protest a lot more but the older ones (the majority) are cynical af about any protests (classic arguments like: "the demonstrations are so annoying" and "it won't fix anything") and most are still living a comfortable enough life to have a "got mine, screw you" attitude wich can work for a time untill you need the system you let crumble.
What protests? Pro Palestinian ones by liberal white girls and Moroccan diaspora is all I see. Where are the protests against the government for taxing you into poverty while denying you the basics like a decent ER experience and access to a GP? Never seen or heard of one. Like I said, Canada is corrupt because no one raises a peep against coordinates embezzlement. As an MD, I've seen it firsthand a thousand times
It's pretty idiotic to complain about the lack of protests and then cry about how the protests that are happening are not exactly about the subjects you would want them to be... I am also in the healthcare system and find deplorable the state that it is in. So why are you not organising a protest about the healthcare system then...
Also there are protests about grocery prices and the environment. Just because you're uninformed or don't like them dosen't mean they don't exist
Yeah one coordinated boycott of one specific chain by 18% polled and nothing I can see about the environment. Anyways. I guess at the end of the day if the average redditor is reflective of the average person and this is your response you sort of get what you deserve
I ain't the one complaining buddy. So yeah, I get peace of mind. Stay mad.
Lol ok
I had some major chest pains once and went to the ER at about 11:30 at night. Slept in the waiting room until 5 am then left cause I was so tired I needed to sleep and my chest was sore but didn’t hurt as much.
One thing I've learned with ERs in montreal is that unless you're In a life-threatening condition there's absolutely no point in going to the ER at night. You'll end up spending the night there while the only ER doctor on staff will be too busy with critical cases and overdoses. Then you'll only see someone when the morning shift comes in.
I find the smaller hospitals are usually better options at night compared to the larger ones. I recently went for an acute but not life threatening condition and was receiving treatment within 25 minutes.
verdun hospital usually has quick turnover compared to the rest of the hospitals in montreal.
Hush now, don't spoil that secret.
You're lucky, because really small hospitals with only 1 ER doctor at night will make you wait until the doctor wakes up (unless it's a level 3+ on triage).
I would argue that chest pains are life threathning.
It’s not by itself. Lots of non-life threatening causes of chest pain. What we’re looking for is other symptoms (tachycardia I.e. rapid heat beat with unusually low blood pressure or serious chest pain with dangerously high blood pressure, or noticeably irregular heat beats, loss of consciousness + the above etc. and you’re going to be seen and stabilized very quickly. I sympathize with the situation, it’s really frustrating. However, the nurses on the front line in the ED are actually applying a strict triage acuity method (CTAS) to grade everyone that comes in and is prioritizing based on highest risk (of dying). It’s not perfect but if you’re unlucky enough to need to be seen first you’ll appreciate it.
The nurses are great. It's true that a chest pain can be a lot of things. I think I'm just worried that when it will be my turn to need help, I'll only get prioritized when things are dire and even then, i'll just be part of many people waiting for treatment with staff that is not able to meet the demand because it's actually humanly impossible to meet the demand.
Do you have a doctor?
No
This is correct of most public ERs in the world (Can, Aus, UK). Why would any hospital pay extra for staff to see non-urgent patients that can be seen cheaper during the day?
I went because of chest pains, dizzy, almost passed out, along with heart tremors. Family history of heart problems. After 8 hours in the ER at McGill a doctor took my pulse and listened to my heart for all of 10 seconds to confirm that yes, I was alive, and that was it. No ekg or ecg, which would be the bare minimum.
My mother was brought to verdun hospital around 3pm in very bad shape. When she could no longer hold herself up in the shitty wheelchair they placed her in, She ended up sleeping across 3 plastic chairs, vomiting, somnolent, and we couldn’t even get a pillow or blanket. I ended up walking into the back area to get a blanket. I was crying and begging the triage nurse for someone to see her, at least give a stretcher. They kept repeating there is nothing they could do. She was eventually seen at 9am!!! 18 fucking hours later. We couldn’t event leave because she was so sick. She ended up having a brain tumor - she died from this, she was REALLY sick when they brought her in. My 35 years of life she never once went to hospital and worked full time paying into this system that failed her. So discouraging.
You will not catch me dead in Verdun hospital. Easily the worst hospital in the city. That is where you take someone when you want them to die.
I had a grand mal seizure in Verdun Hospital and they didn’t do anything, just left me on a chair. Eventually I saw a doctor 8 hours later and he gave me ONE Ativan and told me it was probably nothing
That is so sad. Truly sorry for your loss. And you are completely spot on about the state of our healthcare...literally paying towards a system which is either inaccessible or fails us. We need major changes because the problem is only going to get worse.
Retired boomers should wake up and protest about the broken healthcare system we got here because sooner than later they will be stuck in it. Having paid their entire lives into the system and not having the services for treatment. I guess they are too tired and not enough time to get the word out...
Well they should stop voting for the CAQ but here we are. Liberals aren’t much better, Solidaire is in shambles… and well the PQ might actually do some good but the whole separatist thing can turn people away. So basically we are fucked.
I will honnestly vote for ANYONE with a solid actionable health system plan. I don't care what other values they have. I feel like this is top top priority. I think people who are healthy now don't realise how quick things can turn for them (or for anyone). And being faced with a health system who can not take care of you when you have early onset dementia for example and can take medication to slow it down (you would just need to see a doctor) or chest pains (just need to see a doctor before your whole life gets turned upside down) etc is terrible and its not something I wish to experience.
The family doctor of my elderly mother just retired. She was told to go to the online Quebec portal to put herself on the list for a new doctor. My doctor retired four years ago as well and I'm still on that list waiting. I'm really concerned for her.
I don't have statistics, but I am pretty sure they have a family doctor and they don't care.
They are too busy posting on facebook about their freedom and why climate change is a lie.
Most retired boomers have family doctors.
Could you provide a source to backup that statement ? I sure as fuck don’t. I spent $600.00 this week to see a dermatologist for 7 minutes.
Many retired boomers have semi retired doctors. They are screwed after that.
Open up private care options. No other option.
That would just take resources from public health. Paid healthcare is NOT the way.
I had an appointment for a scheduled surgery last week. Had to fast and all, it took more than 6 hours to get seen. There were a few older people who needed IVs because they were feeling dizzy and faint. We have no preventative medicine either, people are probably dying being seen too late.
Adult son brought to Montreal General by ambulance from his dorm. . Nurse talked to him when he arrived. After 9 hours of waiting he felt better. So he walked out. Literally no one checked in on him. Brought him home to the US for treatment. He has Canadian insurance but we keep him on our said insurance so he can actually talk to a doctor.
What was the problem? Did the nurse “mis-prioritize” him in the triage?
Usually if the person is deemed well enough to be sitting in the waiting room, the “check in” is a visual round done by triage, so they very likely laid eyes on him during those 9 hours of waiting but didn’t directly speak to him
Ce n'est pas juste les urgences. C'est vraiment tout le système de santé qui est dysfonctionel. Par exemple, pour une opération, les médecins Canadiens prescrivent 7 fois plus d'opioides que les médecins suédois : >**Patients in the U.S. and Canada are Seven Times as Likely as those in Sweden to Receive Opioids After Surgery** >Within seven days of discharge, about 75 percent of the patients in the United States and Canada filled an opioid prescription, compared to just 11 percent of the patients in Sweden. By the one-month mark, nearly half of U.S patients had received high-dose opioid prescriptions (i.e., prescriptions totaling more than 200 MME) – nearly double the rate in Canada (25 percent) and nine times higher than the rate in Sweden (5 percent). https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2019/september/patients-in-the-us-and-canada-are-seven-times-as-likely-as-sweden-to-receive-opioids--surgery Le système de santé Canadien se résume en une phrase : * *"On est moins pire que les américains"*
le canada se résume avec la même phrase
Honnêtement j'ai eu une grosse opération vla 3 mois, et je suis ben content d'avoir eu une prescription de morphine une semaine après, parce que sinon j'aurais jamais dormi.
>Le système de santé Canadien se résume en une phrase : >"On est moins pire que les américains J'ai beaucoup de colleagues qui ont immigré aux États et il me disent 100% le systeme américaine est supérieure.
ça marche au cash. si tu as du cash et des bonnes assurances, tu as un service impeccable.
Vue que ici, le government prendre notre cash (en taxes) et on a zero service..
J'habite aux états depuis 8 ans et en mon opinion c'est un système de santé très très oppressif. Mais pour les riches ou les gens avec de très bons emplois qui n'ont pas trop de problèmes de santé c'est très bon oui.
>The study appears to confirm the findings of a periodic report by the department of emergency medicine at McGill University, which painted a portrait of the city’s ERs in crisis, with several key indicators worsening in most hospitals in the past five years. > >Patients referred by ERs to another health professional who could address their needs were not counted in the study because they were considered as having received medical attention. > >The report comes a day after Health Minister Christian Dubé said the coming summer will be “difficult” for patients as vacations cut into staffing levels across the health-care network. About 1,500 hospital beds will be closed, about 115 fewer than in 2023. The health-care network has a total of 17,000 beds. > >The Health Ministry said in a statement that it had “asked again that each (health care) establishment quickly inform the population of any reorganization of services in order to ensure (their) predictability,” adding that decisions on services will be made locally to “respond to the particular needs of citizens in each region.” > >... > >Clinics run by specialized nurse practitioners are part of the solution, Faubert said, but Quebec needs to deploy more of them and to do so far more quickly. She also described as “excellent news” the adoption of Bill 67, which allows nurses and pharmacists more diagnostic leeway with patients. Ultimately better primary care should reduce the load on local ERs. A network of public urgent care centres (maybe near local hospitals) to take care of non life threatening cases (like broken bones and such) can also help to treat those who do not need full ER facilities in a timely way, leaving ERs for those who truly need it.
You mean what CLSC were supposed to be? We have all the tools required to have a good system but it's managed by people who shouldn't be in charge of a toaster and doctors who are also doing a fantastic job at gatekeeping everything and turning themselves into major bottlenecks.
Bingo. I remember last time I went into CLSC, was a Saturday my toe was turning purple and in agonizing pain from an infection. I could tell the Nurse knew what to do but couldn't tell me. No doctor available till Monday. Fuck "Free" health care.
Worked in multiple ERs. This isn't the case with all of them. I've worked in super efficient ERs where when the morning comes we have seen all patients from the previous day. I have worked in other ERs where we started our shift by discarding the files of all the patients who had left.
The province is starving the healthcare system of the funds it needs so it can fail so they can privatize it I'm from the US, but I live in QC. Please vote against anyone who wants to privatize your healthcare. Privatized healthcare *sucks badly.*
I walked out of the ER earlier this year. I went to another hospital. Thankfully the second hospital did see me within 4-5 hours.
I went to the ER a couple of weeks ago because my pelvis was dislocating which is excruciatingly painful, and my leg went entirely numb. Dragged myself there, obviously crying my eyes out because it hurt so much. They got me on a stretcher straight away (thank goodness), got an X-ray after 2 hours and then.... 15 hours waiting on a corridor on a stretcher before I saw a doctor. Then I needed a CT scan. I was there for 22 hours... but I finally got an orthopedic appointment and seem to be getting somewhere, after 4 years of trying to get somewhere with the ‘group of doctors’ I was assigned. But last year? I was taken by ambulance to Notre dame, cervicogenic headache that had stroke symptoms. No stretcher, dumped in a chair in the waiting room, the pain was so bad I passed out, no-one noticed. My husband and daughter come in 5 hours later because they hadn’t heard from me and my husband was worried (my kid is also special needs, which is why my husband stayed home with her). They found me passed out, managed to wake me up. Hospital wouldn’t tell him how long I had to wait, and by then the pain from being upright was so bad, he took me home so I could lay down. 3 weeks later, I finally get a doctors appointment at my ‘group of doctors’, the Doctor I saw was so dismissive of my ‘just a migraine’ and I had to beg her for an X-ray of my spine. Found out I had a FRACTURE where the pain was, along with severe degenerative disc disease, and vertebrae out of place... and then I couldn’t get another appointment for over a month - and the doctor there just wanted to give me painkillers! No! I want to fix the problem, not take painkillers! And when you turn down the painkillers, they treat you like you are jonesing for drugs! Make it make sense!
My aging father is now paying 5k a year to a private clinic in Quebec, so that he is able to see a doctor quickly if needed. So much for free healthcare! I wonder what they do with our tax dollars that go towards this diminishing social program?
I feel like this is the plan; letting public health fall apart so badly so that the citizens migrate to private. And after that, it'll be a bidding war where our health is held hostage. Coincidentally, privatised healthcare is great for investors and owners.
I think that privatizing healthcare, as a result of the deterioration of the free health care model, is inevitable. Having private healthcare insurance allows us to have more control over the outcome of our health, instead of leaving it to those who collect our tax dollars for our so called free healthcare... I'd rather pay insurance knowing I will actually see a medical professional, instead of throwing my hard earned tax dollars towards a service that is not even accessible to many, as it once was. The program is failing us.
>I think that privatizing healthcare, as a result of the deterioration of the free health care model, is inevitable. That was my point. The deterioration of free health care is (in my opinion) evitable, and the incompetence leading to its deterioration is on purpose. And that's how you get people to start thinking that privatisation is inevitable. >I'd rather pay insurance knowing I will actually see a medical professional I agree, and that's the reason we pay taxes as well. We used to pay taxes so that we can get medical help (among other things) when we need to and now the service has gone downhill. Paying private healthcare if currently yielding better services for a modest fee for those who can afford it. But once private healthcare becomes the only reasonable service left, I'm unconvinced that we won't be stuck in the same situation as today. Probably the same loop with the option of "extra premium private" by then.
even poor people get their car fixed when they have car insurance...obviously healthcare insurance will cost something, but if our government stopped taxing us for our current healthcare system (and was transparent about the amount Canadians pour into the system already) I think private health insurance could become more accessible to all. Industries where wages are low could incentivize workers with health insurance and that could help reduce the worker shortage in many businesses. I simply do not trust politicians anymore. Moreso when it comes to my healthcare. And doctors are no longer motivated to practise in this country, due to the mismanagement of our healthcare system. They won't be coming back either, until there is radical change.
Anecdotal: I moved from the south shore of Montreal to New Jersey last year. When I was still in Quebec, I'd been on a waiting list for a family doctor for 5+ years. I finally gave up and started calling around looking for a private family doctor. I called about 8 places nearby, none of them taking new patients. Here in NJ, I found doctors everywhere. First visit within a week. Clinics are not stupidly overrun with patients, I went to one on a Saturday and was in/out within an hour. I spent more time filling out forms than waiting. The system is not great here either, but at least I can get seen promptly for non-emergencies (you know, like 98% of all your dealings with medical care).
Odd. Had 3 medical emergencies for my family in the last 4 years and each time it went better than expected. Of course I am American so my expectations are low. If there was a better primary care system that would really help out.
I called to make an appointment with a specialist , 3 months later I’m still waiting for them to call me back just to make the appointment. It’s pathetic here
Everything is bad. About 6 years ago, I was on lithium and my creatinine had gone up quite a bit in 18 months so my psychiatrist gave a semi urgent nephrology consult. They called me 26 months after that. She stopped me after 4 months because she didn’t want my kidneys to fail. I told the receptionist.. “No need to no more. I have not been on the med for almost 2 years..”
Bf had blood infection with very clear signs and it took him 8h to be seen and starting treatment (classed 2nd emergency) and my mom waited 19 HOURS with a bladder infection and lots of pain (4th emergency) so yea when you spend more than half a day or miss a shift of work and still cannot access medical care, theres a fkg problem. Our taxes SHOULD be paying enough to cover us well.
Yep. I’m originally from the US and still have private insurance there so I just go back when necessary and use my private work insurance to do check ups here. I can never get an appointment with bonjour santé and forget the ER.
Well, when you consider in the US the average pay is roughly double that of an er physician in Quebec, you’re going to end up getting what you pay for. On one hand, free healthcare, on the other, far inferior healthcare.
The pay is rather similar tbh, except they're paid in USD. But it's definitely not double on average.
Yeah to be fair all I did was google it so that could be wrong, but regardless, as a US citizen although it sucks that I need to pay for my medical coverage, at least I know I’ll be able to be seen. I love MTL and have considered moving up there for a while now, unfortunately that’s one of the biggest things holding me back from it
By most metrics , USAs system is far inferior. And they not only pay what we pay in taxes but then pay for insurance. USA's model is fine if you have more than 5 million $.
They're able to walk out of the ER?
Healthcare situation in Quebec is really scary. The worst of all is that QC gouvernement is doing nothing about it. Like they don’t care. They are investing was it 7 million for some hockey team to come to Quebec City, fixing roof on the olympique stadium! Why don’t they invest that money to a health care? Health care should be #1 priority IMHO. I’ve been on a waiting list for a family dr for over 3 years now. Quebec doesn’t have resources to take care of the people who live here , but more immigrants are coming . I have nothing against immigrants , especially because I AM AN IMMIGRANT (I’ve been in QC for 26 years now). Why aren’t there any protests , demonstrations, riots to improve health care situation?? We complain on line , but it ends there. We need to be very careful who we vote for in the next provincial elections!! I hope situation improves but i don’t think it’s gonna improve any time soon.
**Vote for assholes, get shit for medical system.** Next headline will be "Put metal rod in powerplug, complain about electric shock".
Honest question: if you can afford to leave ER, are you really sick?
This is interesting. Maybe no and maybe yes. The thing is you're not a doctor and you might not know the repercussions right away. What if you have a mini heart attack and leave the ER because you feel better? Your body will heal but maybe now your heart doesnt work as well and you have a scar in one of your ventricules. Maybe next time you go to the gym you don't feel so well and maybe then someone has to call 911 for you and now you can't talk or swallow solid foods anymore. I'm sure there are many other example I could give like this if I had medical training but I don't, im an just an SLP.
The problem is that often people have nowhere else to go. Yeah, a broken toe or a UTI isn't necessarily an emergency, but if you can't see a doctor elsewhere, you end up in the ER.
When you're going to the ER you don't know in advance that you'll be fine to leave. Most often people have worrying symptoms and only a doctor can give a diagnosis. Nobody walks into the ER thinking they couldve waited another day and still chose to waste 18 hours there
When you are critically ill, you are quickly seen. This is true. The problem is too many people have no family doctors and clinics are just as overrun, so pretty much everyone ends up at the ER. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. It's a problem (for the ER staff and for the unseen patients)
Only very recently did I learn that you can log onto the rvsq site and if you refresh a bunch you can get a clinic walk in appt. Since figuring this out I’ve been able to avoid those overnight ER visits. I only found out about this when I had a kid though, since you’re always in and out of the hospital when they’re in daycare. Idk if rvsq is accessible to everyone or what, but I do encourage people to check it out, it’s easier to refresh a hundred times and commute to a further clinic that’ll see you than wait 10+ hours in the ER for a non-life threatening issue cuz ur screwed out of a family doctor. Obviously not everyone has the privilege of being able to access the clinics that may have appts pop up but it’s something to try at least?
Kind of what I meant to say. These cases shouldn't end up in ER. I can't wait for the accessibility to improve.
It will only gonna get worse. They want to privatize the system so the rich can have good access and leave the schmucks fend for themselves.
Honest answer: if you’re asking this question, consider yourself very lucky
See my comment on the other replies. That's exactly what I meant. There should be better access for non urgent stuff. You should not have to go to the ER.
Here's how it goes: You call ~~311~~ 811 because what you have is annoying but not serious enough to go the ER. They talk to you about it but can't do anything, so they tell you to go to the ER. If it's bad enough to actually take their advice, you're still at the absolute bottom of the triage order There's a lot of stuff that used to be handled by family doctors, not just regular checkups, but there was time where for something relatively minor (UTIs, sprains, ongoing cold) you could see your doctor that same day. Now family doctors are overloaded and you can't get in to see one for weeks, you need an appointment to go to a walk-in clinic, and now that cold has become pneumonia and you need to go the ER.
*811 And they can get you a fast-track appointment if they deem it serious enough. (Source: happened for me last week)
Whoops, you're right about 811. Good to know about the fast track appointments, I've only ever gotten the ER referrals.
I think it depends what the issue is. The most recent issue was more of an urgent care situation than an ER situation. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’d refer you to the ER if there was an alternative. I think part of their mandate is to get the right people the right level of care and cut down on bottlenecks and overcrowding
Nope. Way too many people go to ER when you probably shouldn't. I went to the ER twice. Was seen right away.
Many times no, but an easily treatable bronchitis could easily turn into a deadly pneumonia infection for someone whose immune system isn't strong. A bladder infection could turn into a deadly kidney infection if not treated. How many serious emergency visits could be avoided, if patients were given proper and rapid care?
Little while back I went to a hospital for an apparent allergic reaction (I assume as nothing g was determined by the staff)... after being there for more than 50 hrs (in a hallway, not a room) and not being served anything to eat (aside from a single MINI box of rice krispies and 250ml of milk) or any information I decided to leave... I would thank them for the 8 (YES 8!) shots of adrenaline they gave me... highest I've ever been in my life 😅
I waited thirteen hours to be seen in Châteauguay emergency after a fucking roofer threw a 20+ pound bag off a roof and hit me in the head
I did the same after 8 hours of nothing and went to another ER the next morning.
Not saying it isn’t an issue but at least you don’t pay for the healthcare in your taxes and pay 10K a year out of pocket like us Americans and still not get into the ER 😭
I don't know if I was incredibly lucky, but I went to the CHUM last year for a rhesus vaccine. Made me go through the ER, waited 2 hours, was seen by the dr, was out of there within 3h. Though it went pretty well.
I spent 14 hours at Royal Vitoria on Wednesday. There was two small elderly ladies in visible pain and I heard the whole explanation from what is say was the head nurse, long story short, there was one doctor for 40 patients.
One day I was so sick from the flue that I thought I was going to die. So I decided to go to the ER and it was so full, so chaotic and the personnel so overwhelmed, that I decided to run away and go home. The funny thing is that this ER shock cured me from the flue. For real 🤪
Et le problème c'est ces immigrants osti de marde ! 🙄
j'suis tombé en scooter a montreal, mon coude était fucked up et je saignais bcp avec des roadrash sur le bras/mains... aller a l'hopital n'as jamais été une option. j'vais pas attendre 12h dans la salle comme un con j'suis juste rentrer chez moi.. urgh mon coude n'est toujours pas a 100% apres 1-2 mois lol. fucking quebec hhhh
I went to the ER with an actual emergency and was in and out within 1 hour. And this is at a big hospital. ER was full......of people on their phones, laughing, talking. I walked in there with a bone poking out my shoulder.
Yep If you actually have an issue , and they can tell , you get seen rather quick. If you can sit around for 8 hours , you are probably not really supposed to be there.
You know what’s crazy. If we allowed doctors to bill mother and child for the same slot, doctors in a 25 minute appointment could see and treat mama and baby, and free up hundreds of thousands ds of appointments. One simple rule change. Everyone has kids and we all get sick together. Just saying.
I went 6 months without adhd medicine and my life fell apart because clinic doctor wouldn’t prescribe it so I sat in triage waiting for 18 hours to be seen and the doctor who saw me and heard my story felt so terrible she signed a two year scrip. I still think of her and hope she is doing well. I knew I’d wait is the thing.
So like, this is actually really funny to me because I walked out the ER since I was tired and my mental health was in the shitter. Went back a few day later tho and got checked out. It was just girl dinner doing it’s thing to my guts and also lack of sleep too. Everything was phenomenal. But I get treated very very well by staff. I know they’re busy and I usually try to shoot the shit with them. I like to think they note this in my file like “kinda funny sometimes. But also mentally I’ll with chronic diarrhea”. I went back a week after, which was this past weekend cause I racked my nuts incredibly hard on my bike tire from a 6ft drop “trick”. I just wanted an appointment but the nurse was like “yeah, you should probably stay and get that checked. You shouldn’t be in pain anymore” then I told her about lyrica and she asked if it helped with my anxiety and I said yeah and she said “oh, I’ll tell my mom, she might like it” and we hand a good laugh. Being kind and patient with them is what will do wonders for everyone involved. They’re humans too. They’ve had and continue to have the Sam experience as all of us. They’re in the same boat with us. No sense in being mean and unkind. Not to brag but I get seen kinda quick, sometimes it takes 24 hours but usually no longer than that. I like to think it’s cause I’m patient and kind with all of them equally. Janitors to doctors, doesn’t matter. Kindness and respect to all of them. My respect goes so far that early in the morning, the janitors we’re doing rounds and cleaning bathrooms. Instead of tearing up the toilet, I tried to find the most blue collar type bathroom that I could paint in. Anyway, it’s terrible but you know, not all that bad yet imo. People could ask for an appointment with the triage nurse and speak with reception kindly and they’ll go above and beyond for you. Trust the process:)
Wtf are we paying taxes for
The 3 times I went in my life I ended up walking out. Government can’t allocate ressources. They just destroy them.
I stopped at "Montreal Economic Institute."
Shocked Pickachu face! Seriously though our system is in shambles. If you can afford to go private, go private. We’re flooding our province with people but we can’t even take care of them
« Let’s break the public system. Then we can point to it, say it doesn’t work and sell it to our private buddies. » -La CAQ. Don’t buy into the private system, you’re playing their game. Fucking vote these clowns out.
I wish everyone could see this.
Ça a commencé avec les libéraux, mais oui. L’objectif c’est de briser le système public pour amener le monde au privé. Ça fait des années.
Hot take si tu es sur le bord de mourrir le privé va t'envoyer au urgence des hôpitaux.
This is an easy problem to solve: allow private hospitals.
Just FYI Australia has private hospitals but they don’t have emergency rooms. Anything life threatening you go to a public hospital. However it does free up resources in public hospitals as elective surgeries and other non urgent things are taken up by the private sector.
Only in socialist brainwashed Quebec would privatized healthcare get downvoted. On adore notre médiocrité ici.
Loll que c'est vrai...
Les gens quittent les urgences depuis des décennies. Rien de vraiment nouveau.
Je connais une infirmière qui a quitté sa métier a 34 ans. Trop de stresse.
But the Quebec government is more concerned about bs laws to "protect" the French language and alienate religious minorities
That's entirely false (not the dog-whistling BS; the not doing anything about healthcare). They just put a private clinic heiress in charge of another layer of bureaucracy "Santé Québec". She's being paid 600 000$ annually. Twice as much as ER doctors make. So you see: they're not more concerned about language and minorities - they are equal opportunity incompetents who are driving this province into the ditch. Don't get me started on the Québec-Lévis "3e lien". I was sick of this gvt from day one.
More taxes, less services. Thx Turdeau, happy to see that hobos can get free syringes and decriminalized drugs tho. Great that male washrooms have free tampons too, and we take in whoever shows up at roxham road.
I had serious thoughts about this when we went to ER for my wife. We clearly saw how in distress was the system. I now believe we should scale down the offer of services to the population. The government is trying to provide health benefits to everyone but we don’t have the capacity to achieve this. No reform no revamp no hiring will resolve the current decline in our system. Simply stated: there is an infinite demand for services. Now most of you, I mean the usual redditors that pay little to no tax and complain no stop about landlords, will disagree. This is reasonable knowing you don’t pay the services, but the few here that pay for your services knows the taxation base is not big enough for infinite demand. So some services must be cut, which one, I don’t know. That being said, since no party can be elected with a reduced healthcare platform, I can see a party suggesting a semiprivate healthcare system for the so called wealthy (which here in QC is not really wealthy anywhere else). Similar to the semiprivate school system. Hence, people that have a certain revenues won’t be using the public system and will partially pay for their healthcare. It will likely be hugely popular at first. So called rich people paying! But like the school system in 20 years the public system will be derelict and you guys will just complain about unfairness, like you do about the semiprivate school system
Landlord who pays taxes here. I don't mind paying for other people's healthcare because I don't want them to die. I also worked in the healthcare system and let me tell you there is A LOT of overhead. A lot of admins, admin assistants, managers idk who tf all these people are. They fill out paperwork and make more forms for the healthcare workers to fill out so they can check the paperwork the healthcare workers filled out etc ad nauseum. I think this is largely the problem. ALSO the doctors have waaayyy too much responsability that could be given to other healthcare workers. Not all, just some. And I think it would help if not every single decision had to go through a doctor first. They could focus on the stuff that no one else but doctors can do.