Why is Canada Sending So Many Patients Across the Border?

How many patients did Canada send to America for treatment during a heart attack? More than 400.

More and more Canadian patients are being shipped to America for treatment, for everything from heart problems to high risk pregnancies:

“This province and the number of people going outside for care - it’s increasing in every area,” Ms. Witmer said.

“I definitely believe that it is very bad planning. …We’re simply unable to meet the demand, but we don’t even know what the demand is.”

Tom Closson, the Ontario Hospital Association’s president and chief executive officer, said 30 per cent of Ontario’s hospital medical beds are currently occupied by patients awaiting more appropriate placements, such as assisted living centres, a nursing home, a rehabilitation facility or even their own homes with proper home-care supports.

That squeezes the system at both ends: Patients in intensive care units whose condition improves cannot get into step-down units, and some emergency patients can’t get a bed at all, he said, adding that “everything is jam-packed at the moment.”

In America, you get treatment when you need it. Even if you don’t have insurance, or can’t pay for it, the emergency room will take you and try to keep you alive. You might be having a heart attack, but the emergency room will not ship you to another country to get you treatment.

Take this guy for example. “Eric Bialkowski, 47″ has a heart attack in Canada. The health care system there fails to meet his medical needs, so they ship him to America. In America, he is greeted at the hospital and even Mr. Biakowski says, “It was like Disneyworld customer service.”

Now, he arrives at the hospital, and they do an angioplasty and put in four stents. Remember, this is in America. The hospital sends the bill to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, and Mr. Bialkowski has the gall to say,

“I guess the Canadian government took care of me”

No, sir, they didn’t. America’s health care system did.