We are at a point where we need to examine our whole social structure. We have a medical system in place in Alberta that is allowing doctors to charge a person annual premiums to visit their clinic. 3000 bucks for a single; 8000 or more for a family. Includes house calls. Soon enough it will be the rule rather than the exception!
We also have a society that advocates saving lives at any cost. I see on the tube a father who his so happy his son has had a chance at open heart surgery; a break he enjoyed also but his father never got.
If we are going to fix Medicare this would be the place to start. It's genetic. Fix nothing until you fix the gene rather than blow a limited fund on creating a new problem.
Then, we have a reasonably good diabetic program that is in jeopardy. There is a cut of Canadians who do not have the cash to buy the 30 test strips a day they require. (About one dollar a strip) yet, they make too much money to get assistance with their diabetes expense!
This is the group that is facing amputation and worse in their future because of this very basic and inexpensive fix. An amputation of one limb costs about 75,000.00 in Alberta. That covers a lot of test strips. As a post note Albert Contributes less to diabetes than any other province.
And, when we save a tot who is bent for what ever reasons and this tot could not survive without the medical intervention you open the door to assisted suicide!
In a great many of these cases the tot grows into an adult and cannot sustain them selves. I know of cases where the family went through all their resources. financial, physical and mental finally giving into the fact they were not capable of looking after the tot now that person had grown up. Huge, unnecessary guilt trip! This person was put into a nursing home type structure where she survived for another 3 years before passing on. Her life was one of relative misery as was her family's!
Save tots so they can grow up and be abandoned by society.
With privatized health care here there is a financial imperative for the hospitals to keep the carcass alive on life support if needed for as long as the money holds out! When the house, cash those things the person had planned on leaving to their off spring is gone, the plug is pulled for some undisclosed reason. This is the system we have invited! There is a huge paid lobby out there trying to keep this revenue source for hospitals alive and, I don't think this Government has got the guts to bring a stop to it.
Kevorkian used an injection of potassium chloride. You can buy that at the grocery store under the label "half salt". Carbon dioxide replaces the oxygen you breath so you have to sense of oxygen depravation; just go to sleep.
We have to allow ourselves the luxury of choice in these dark areas and avoid government, church and medical intervention.
Its a huge subject worthy of more debate.
