quote:

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Originally posted by treepatrol:
I thought Canada had free medical?

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Watching too much Simpsons?

quote:

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Originally posted by Areneli:
Watching too much Simpsons?

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NICE http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/medicare/chaover.htm

What is the Canada Health Act?
The Canada Health Act is Canada's federal health insurance legislation.

The Act sets out the primary objective of Canadian health care policy:

``...to protect, promote and restore the physical and mental well-being of residents of Canada and to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.''

The Canada Health Act establishes criteria and conditions related to insured health care services and extended health care services that the provinces and territories must meet in order to receive the full federal cash contribution under the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST).

The aim of the Canada Health Act is to ensure that all eligible residents of Canada have reasonable access to medically necessary insured services on a prepaid basis, without direct charges at the point of service for such services.

Key Definitions under the CHA
Insured persons are eligible residents of a province or territory. A resident of a province is defined in the Canada Health Act as "a person lawfully entitled to be or to remain in Canada who makes his home and is ordinarily present in the province, but does not include a tourist, a transient or a visitor to the province."
Persons excluded under the Canada Health Act include serving members of the Canadian Forces or Royal Canadian Mounted Police and inmates of federal penitentiaries.

Insured health services are medically necessary hospital, physician and surgical-dental services provided to insured persons.

Insured hospital services are defined under the Canada Health Act and include medically necessary in- and out-patient services such as accommodation and meals at the standard or public ward level and preferred accommodation if medically required; nursing service; laboratory, radiological and other diagnostic procedures, together with the necessary interpretations; drugs, biologicals and related preparations when administered in the hospital; use of operating room, case room and anaesthetic facilities, including necessary equipment and supplies; medical and surgical equipment and supplies; use of radiotherapy facilities; use of physiotherapy facilities; and services provided by persons who receive remuneration therefore from the hospital, but does not include services that are excluded by the regulations.

Insured physician services are defined under the Act as "medically required services rendered by medical practitioners." Medically required physician services are generally determined by physicians in conjunction with their provincial and territorial health insurance plans.

Insured surgical-dental services are services provided by a dentist in a hospital, where a hospital setting is required to properly perform the procedure.

Extended health care services as defined in the Canada Health Act are certain aspects of long-term residential care (nursing home intermediate care and adult residential care services), and the health aspects of home care and ambulatory care services.

Chew on that http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/030855.html

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Originally posted by Areneli:
Thanks for your reply ... but, ee ... wishful thinking.
The Canadian healthcare is falling apart so don't be jealous. It is not a good system for many people. Certainly was not for me.

Do you know, that for my first appt with neurologist I had to wait 6 months?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Areneli:
Thanks for your reply ... but, ee ... wishful thinking.
The Canadian healthcare is falling apart so don't be jealous. It is not a good system for many people. Certainly was not for me.

Do you know, that for my first appt with neurologist I had to wait 6 months?

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I thought so too from the very first post.

TROLLS are huge time wasters whose only aim is to cause eventual KAOS on the board.

Do not feed the Trolls.

I would have hoped someone recommended self treatment with doxy at least.

So I don't see this person's self treatment with amoxy that far fetched at all.

I wonder if someone can recall the link.

It was sad but revealing about the health care in Canada. I am glad I'm not there with
lyme disease.

Regards

What is the Canada Health Act?
The Canada Health Act is Canada's federal health insurance legislation.

The Act sets out the primary objective of Canadian health care policy:

``...to protect, promote and restore the physical and mental well-being of residents of Canada and to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.''
etc
http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/030855.html

Hey Treepatrol,
Initially I have ignored your answer since it didn't make much sense to me. It looks however that there is an ongoing problem with your response (it was picked up by a spammer - Recipegirl05). Therefore, I will elaborate further.

My answer to you was in protest against typical American stereotypical view of Canadian healthcare system as free for everybody as you have manifested in your previous response. This view of Canadian system is skewed and oversimplified.

The most spectacular example of it I have seen was in a popular TV show - The Simpsons. My response has referred to the particular part when the Simpson family visited Canada and carelessly get involved in a car accident "because, who cares, healthcare is free here".

Well, it is not exactly as good as it seems to some Americans.

If was to brief in my answer and didn't convey this meaning to your for what I apologize.

Next time I will try to write to you as simply as possible to avoid future misunderstandings.

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Originally posted by ontariojane:
Whoa Nellie! I am on i.v. rocephin, nurses come to my door every day, and if it weren't for the Canadian healthcare system I would be in really deep trouble financially. I run a home-based business (affected adversely by my Lyme, which has sucked my energy nearly dry and left me with panic attacks) and thus have no work-based extra insurance. I.V. drugs in Canada are FREE, folks.
The home nursing care, is also FREE. The pump I use is FREE. The highly-trained nurses provide support, and sympathy as well as medical care. All the trappings, tubes, bandages, flush syringes, etc etc etc all FREE. Medication is delivered right to my door every week - FREE.
We are short of doctors and we are addressing it - that's why the long waiting times. The system has a lot going for it and I would literally go to the barricades to defend it both on principle and in practise. to my way of thinking medical care is a basic human right.
(Nice way to introduce myself, isn't it, by coming out battling?.....)
Proud Canadian Jane

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Often you read in paper about people with signs of brain tumour who died waiting for 2 years for MRI. Wait lines are a really a big issue as the system is delaying services to such an extent that some people never get them for variety of reasons: because they die, move to another province and start waiting from the beginning, look for payable services in other countries. Delaying diagnosis is made to save money.

The healthcare leaders make the decision which category of patient will receive a good treatment and which not. Additionally, only treatments that are very well proven can be provided. A slightly questionable treatment is not going to be provided even if it is the only chance for some people.

There are also differences among provinces. Rich provinces like Ontario may offer more, poor provinces will offer much less to people in the same condition.

And just to confuse the issue even more each province has some special groups of sicknesses that they take really good care of (while neglecting others of course).
In Saskatchewan for example patients with sleep apnea receive free CPAP machine for treatment (+ free service) while in Ontario they have to pay for it themselves (~$1000).

So it all depends on your luck: if you have a medical condition that healthcare covers well, you may smile, if you are not so lucky you will be refused any help and you wouldn't be able to find it anywhere else in Canada.