When your health care system has to beg the world for doctors, what kind of doctors do you suppose show up?
The ophthalmologist, another specialist told her later, had implanted the lens in the wrong position, obscuring her sight and puncturing a duct, causing a slow bleed and massive pressure. "There was so much blood in there, it blew the eyeball out of my head. It was hanging on my cheek," said Ms. Church, a razor-sharp 83-year-old. "The blood was just dripping everywhere ... I was hysterical, the pain was so bad."
Both incidents point to dangerous breakdowns in the Canadian health-care system. But don't expect to find any public record of either apparent blunder -- or of thousands of similarly harmful and sometimes deadly mistakes that occur in facilities across the country each year.
Most instances of the system hurting rather than healing patients, in fact, are not even reported by staff internally, a National Post investigation has documented. [...]
"We do turn a blind eye and walk away," the nurse admitted. "There is a lot of lying, there's a lot of cover-up, which turns my stomach.
Tommy Douglas, Not Dead Enough - Small Dead Animals
The ophthalmologist, another specialist told her later, had implanted the lens in the wrong position, obscuring her sight and puncturing a duct, causing a slow bleed and massive pressure. "There was so much blood in there, it blew the eyeball out of my head. It was hanging on my cheek," said Ms. Church, a razor-sharp 83-year-old. "The blood was just dripping everywhere ... I was hysterical, the pain was so bad."
Both incidents point to dangerous breakdowns in the Canadian health-care system. But don't expect to find any public record of either apparent blunder -- or of thousands of similarly harmful and sometimes deadly mistakes that occur in facilities across the country each year.
Most instances of the system hurting rather than healing patients, in fact, are not even reported by staff internally, a National Post investigation has documented. [...]
"We do turn a blind eye and walk away," the nurse admitted. "There is a lot of lying, there's a lot of cover-up, which turns my stomach.
Tommy Douglas, Not Dead Enough - Small Dead Animals
