Re: Private health care.
I used to work as a paramedic in the Niagara Region where a number of nursing homes are privately owned and operated. Working in the field I do, I get to see the insides of nursing homes alot and therefore have a good repository of experiences to compare private vs. more publicly operated facilities. By and large, the condition of private nursing homes I have seen is deplorable. Overcrowding, minimal care, poor care, drab, institutional etc. Not the sort of place where one wants thier loved ones spending thier final years. Exceptions to this exist, but they tend to be very high end (read expensive) facilities.
The most poignant example I can give is when my partner and I were called to one such private nursing home for a resident short of breath. We arrived at the bedside of this person and assessed them to be near death. Our Base Hospital Doctor in Niagara was/is pretty progressive. Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the province, depending on the situation, family members could provide us paramedics with an on the spot, verbal, Do Not Resuscitate Order (DNR) for thier loved one. This is what happened with the patient we were now attending to; however, also present at the bedside was a nurse/ representative of the company that owned the nursing home. The company rep. started argueing with the patients family and us as to whether or not we would attempt a recuscitation or not, They wouldn't want to lose a paying customer after all. . It was always extremely difficult for me to have to ask a family member if they wanted thier loved one resuscitated or not. You can see the anguish in thier faces after being presented with such a decision, and, having to make such a decision in a couple of seconds (not minutes). And yet here is this company rep. argueing with these same people, after having just gone through this process, all for the sake of the bottom line.
No, the further we move away from private health care the better we all are.
