Comments on: Did Natasha Richardson suffer “walk and die” syndrome?

By: The explanation

The explanation — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:39:39 +0000

The goal of socialized medicine is to reduce costs and deliver only the medical care that is needed. So they play a numbers game – if a treatment of disgnostic tool results in positive benefits a lot of the time then it will be considered – otherwise forget it. The facilities for expensive treatments are not available at as many hospitals as they are in the US because of this.
I used to live in Canada and I’ve had some experience of this – rather than go down the hall to get an x-ray (as would happen at my GP’s in Atlanta) I’ve had to go across town to a centralized facility.
SO my child had a concussion last fall here in Atlanta, was knocked out for a short while and very confused for several hours; he got a CT scan – which showed no internal bleeding. Because of the possbility of negative results of the CT scan, the Canadian medical plans would likely not have done this. And because of the complaints about “two-tier access to medicine” that came up in the past, I would not have been able to get to ANY facility in Canada and pay CASH to get the test. I would have had to wait until the damage was done before I could escalate treatment. In the majority of cases the injury would not cause death – it’s a numbers game.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:31:08 +0000

Willie, as a passionate person myself, I appreciate the courage and drive you express in your willingness to take on controversial subjects. Today, many people are afraid to question the wisdom of socialized medicine (or the quality of our health care in the U.S.) for fear of being ridiculed. The practice browbeating others into silence is as old as civilization. Beautiful Natasha has indeed shed light on questions that must be asked – for everyone’s health and well being.

By: Clark

Clark — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:18:24 +0000

we are now seeing reports that Quebec does not have emergency helicopters …. is this deficit a result of having a nationalized health care system?

By: Willie

Willie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:21:19 +0000

Maria what you say is somewhat correct but you have to have a real passion for this profession and as you will learn sometimes you just have to dialogue with people especially when your voracity is being challenged by uneducated lay people. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion even a wrong one and the internet is hit and miss for sure but people use it for education and you should add your voice to the discussion as you are educated. Right now you are studying the second year med school load and you seem to not have enough time and that is normal. However never be too busy to talk to people when you are in practice people especially patients as they need reassurance and just knowing that they can talk to their doctor is huge. I talk to patients all day about surgery and success and failure of treatment. All patients have my cell phone and home phone I am never unavailable to them. I have had seven spinal operations myself 4 on my neck and three on my back, I come from a family of seven physicians and surgeons and I have grown up around medicine my whole entire life. I went to U of M in Ann Arbor played football for Bo Schembechler and then went to Wayne State med school, I was a linebacker in college (part of the cause of the seven spine surgeries later in life) I have always been a fighter and stood up for what was right. The American people are being lied to, again, about health care. I have worked in all types of medical systems city hospitals at Detroit Receiving, County hospitals like LA County USC and LA County Martin Luther King, VA hospitals, and private hospitals well run and not well run.
A well run private hospital with academically oriented leadership is the best health care in the world period. They are provide great health care, they are profitable and provide jobs and a sense of pride for the entire community. By the way there is nothing wrong with making a good living while providing good care and do not let anyone tell you that there is something wrong with you making a good living that is total BS. Everybody wants to have first class health care from a committed physician and surgeon and those people cost money. Bright dedicated hard working people are not free, most of them had to borrow money to go to school and the people they borrowed money from want their money back plus interest.
I did my spine fellowship at William Beaumont in Royal Oak Michigan that is a great hospital and it does all of those things. As far as venting goes I am not venting I am teaching and if I saved just 1 life I did a good job and that is how I see it. The evidence i presented did not require that much time I am an experienced researcher I have written scientific papers, the evidence of this bad health care scenario is overwhelming and this was just a smidgeon of it.
On a personal side learn not to argue with people that know a lot more about something than you do and never insist that you are right when you are clearly wrong in addition to looking like a clown as a physician you will kill somebody. READ the literature most of these people do not read and they just listen to people tell lies and because it sounds good and because it supports their own political and social position they back it up. The Canadian health care system although well intentioned is a huge failure the man who invented it, Claude Castonguay said so himself!!! I mean how much more verification do you need? Now the system represents socialist hypocrisy because it cannot meet the BASIC needs of the people and emergency services are basic needs, and the system failed because it does not require what medicine compels the most RESPONSIBILITY. That is correct no one in the system has to be responsible and they do not want to be responsible because that would mean looking at what they have wrought on the Canadian people.
Finally it is my intention to pursue a law degree. I will do it over the internet. You do not know the depth of the depravity in health care. There is tremendous waste and abuse and I am talking about right here in the U.S. The politics of healthcare revolves around the love of money not truly earned and lies and the people are truly secondary and the physicians are considered as pest, people in the way of the “agenda”. I am just practicing my skills on the internet jury “presenting my case” as it were. When people see my real name I want them to tremble if they have mistreated a patient or a physician. I want their attorneys to tell their clients that “we need to settle if we can because this guy is the real deal and he means it. “
Good Luck Maria I am sure you will do fine just remember always be honest no matter how difficult it is and always be available and people will love you and respect you and you will feel great about your work and yourself.

By: tony

tony — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:00:06 +0000

This is so unbelievably sad. She and Liam Neeson have been so classy with the way they have handled their careers and raised their children. Besides being an uncommonly talented actress, she was above all a beautiful and caring human being. She will be missed.

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:13:21 +0000

Willie, I’m asking this with the wide-eyed curiosity of a 2nd-year medical student. I was sucked in to this debate first by my curiosity about the Richardson case, as well as the interesting comments here. As intelligent and experienced as you are, with 19 years of medical training, why would you choose this forum to express your views? I agree with you on most of what you say, and it’s clear you feel very strongly about your beliefs – why then would you spend over an hour commenting on an article that not many people will read? I’m sure you’re an extremely busy person who understands the difference between activity and productivity. Do more productive means exist out there for physicians to express their concerns about our healthcare system? Without us, no one would have any healthcare in the first place. I suppose I’m just wondering… if this is your only place to vent your views and attempt to affect some change, what will practicing medicine be like for my generation?

By: Willie

Willie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:10:13 +0000

Well since I started this at least part of it anyway I will add to my previous comments albeit to the chagrin of some of my Canadian brethren. I did tell you exactly what her diagnosis was prior to her autopsy coming out because as I stated earlier this is a textbook case, textbook. I am a physician and surgeon and I do know the Canadian system well and many of your physicians as they all leave as fast as they can from Canada to come down to the U.S. so they can make a living here in the U.S.. I am sorry that you are upset over your socialized system the only other bad news is the people that neglected to take care of Natasha will not be sued into oblivion like they would here for this neglect. That is right neglect this lady is dead and YOUR health care system is at least partly responsible and as you can see a lot of people know all about it and so do I. You see I lived in Michigan and Washington State and Buffalo during my training to be an orthopedic and spinal surgeon, about a total of 19 years including college and research, residency and fellowship years. All of those cities had programs set up to take care of the more affluent Canadians that did not want to wait 8 months to two years for a total joint or an organ transplant. To not have a hospital prepared to take care of serious injuries in proximity to a ski resort is laughable. By the way people who wear helmets get epidural bleeds and concussions too and wearing helmets is no excuse for not having adequate medical facilities. Governments (that includes the USA) cannot manage large sums or even moderate sums of money and they have proven that over and over but the hard core idiots cannot seem to get that through their heads. For example we just gave AIG bailout money to pay off bonuses to people that do not even work there anymore!! How STUPID is that?!?
I truly feel bad for Natasha and her family as this was a useless loss of life and the medical system is mostly to blame. DO NOT BLAME NATASHA ONLY COWARDS BLAME THE VICTIM. All patients when they feel better walk and talk and try to go about their business. The diagnostic period although short and unforgiving is there and she had it, she complained of headaches etc. but no one could act on it because they simply do not have the accommodations and they really should as they are at a ski resort where hundreds and thousands of people will fall every year and they should be prepared to take care of business and they are not and that is it. Typically there are protocols set up for these kinds of disasters because although not very common they do happen and the system should be prepared and clearly it is not. Had she gone to a clinic near the ski resort immediately they still could not have done anything as they plainly do not have the facilities and she would had to been flown somewhere and that takes time and you do not have that much time it has to be done on the timetable of the disease not some failed socialized half baked medical timetable
As far as me getting up in a room and telling people who are “educated” how bad this system is, I can assure you that I have absolutely no qualms or trepidations about telling the truth to anybody, anytime anywhere as there is no fear in my heart, none. The truth is what it is

By: Willie

Willie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:35:16 +0000

What about the women and children?

Sick with ovarian cancer, Sylvia de Vires, an Ontario woman afflicted with a 13-inch, fluid-filled tumor weighing 40 pounds, was unable to get timely care in Canada. She crossed the American border to Pontiac, Mich., where a surgeon removed the tumor, estimating she could not have lived longer than a few weeks more.
The Canadian government pays for U.S. medical care in some circumstances, but it declined to do so in de Vires’ case for a bureaucratically perfect, but inhumane, reason: She hadn’t properly filled out a form. At death’s door, de Vires should have done her paperwork better.
De Vires is far from unusual in seeking medical treatment in the U.S. Even Canadian government officials send patients across the border, increasingly looking to American medicine to deal with their overload of patients and chronic shortage of care.

Critics say these border crossings highlight the dangers of a government-run health care system.
“The Canadian healthcare system has used the United States as a safety net for years,” said Michael Turner of the Cato Institute. “In fact, overall about one out of every seven Canadian physicians sends someone to the United States every year for treatment.”
Neonatal intensive care units in Alberta and Ontario have also been stretched to capacity, she said.
The cost of these airlifts and treatments, paid to U.S. hospitals by the province under Canada’s universal health care system, runs upwards of $1,000 a child.

By: Willie

Willie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:30:18 +0000

What does the Canadian who created the Canadian health care sytem 40 years ago say about it today? Ladies and Gentleman I give you Claude Castonguay

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.
What would drive this champion of socialism to the private sector?
Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.
Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today, Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape.

By: Willie

Willie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:12:26 +0000

Will Canadians ever go back to private healthcare? Yes if they can check out below

CMA Head Says Canada’s Health-Care System in Crisis, Needs Change
Posted on: Wednesday, 22 August 2007, 21:15 CDT
By CAMILLE BAINS
VANCOUVER (CP) – The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says the country’s public health-care system is headed for crisis, but a greater role for private health care could be the right prescription.
Dr. Brian Day said in his inaugural speech to Canada’s medical establishment Wednesday that contracting out health services isn’t new and has helped slash wait lists.
“Let’s be clear: Canadians should have the right to private medical insurance when timely access is not available in the public system,” he said to applause from about 270 delegates at the annual convention