Welcome to socialized medicine

And the Utopian gloriousness of "universal health care"...

Health officials in Manitoba have launched an investigation into the death of a man who waited 34 hours for treatment in a Winnipeg emergency room.

The 45-year-old man was dropped off at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg around 3 p.m. Friday, health officials have confirmed. He was found dead, still in the waiting area, just after midnight Sunday.

Comments

[mikey]

Wow, I've felt like that guy but I've never literally been dead in the waiting room.

What woke them up to his plight? Did his corpse start to stink?

Socialized medicine. Thank YOU, Tommy Douglas. *spit*

[jean]

My Mom had medical problems 4 years ago at the age of 84 and she got great treatment but the thing is that she was taken to hospital by ambulance: If I had taken her myself by taxi ( not possible due to her low mobility ) she might have been sitting there for hours and died there ! Or at the very least the wait would have made her already fragile condition even more critical and not have recovered like she did ! ( Still fine at 88 ).

The point being that the emergency services seem to work with ambulance arrivals which are treated in triage as " REAL " emergencies but just showing up at the emergency room means that one sits there for hours unless one is bleeding all over the floor or shows obvious signs of distress: Someone sitting there quietly may have a head cold or be having a stoke and both will be forgotten about for multiple hours.

Emergency rooms should be for emergencies but the lack of family doctors or walk in clinics clogs up the emergency rooms.

The medical services are good when they finally get around to you: But that is the problem isn't it !

[Toowoozy]

........and this doesn't happen in the states as well???
Actually in the states the estate would still have to mortgage everything they had to pay the 50,000 dollar bill for services they would still receive.