Thank You, Ontario Premier Mike Harris
Aug. 1st, 2003 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojAs Chris said yesterday after I called Telehealth, "Thank you, Mike Harris. There are no beds in the hospital system available for you, but at least we can tell you you need one."
Harris, BTW, put money into Telehealth, a service staffed 24h a day with health care professionals who can give you sound medical advice. This is very useful when your baby has a fever and you don't know whether you should take them to Emerg and hang around for 4 hours waiting to be seen, only to be told it's due to teething.
He also cut health care and education spending. This has resulted in overflowing Emerg rooms, overworked staff, cutbacks in services, no beds for patients who need them, and an exodus of health care workers to the States, resulting in more understaffing and worse health services. Why an exodus? Because the understaffing is too stressful, and there's no money to give proper services, and health care worker's salaries have also been slashed, and, in the case of new doctors and nurses, the cutbacks in higher education have resulted in higher and higher debtloads upon exiting school. It's not easy to pay back >$150 in debts on the salaries currently being offered. And the States beckon with much higher salaries, lower taxes, better working conditions, and more respect for physicians.
Why am I going on about this?
Because my family doc put in an urgent request for me to see the gyne guy right away. And the gyne guy replied that he would be happy to bump me up the list as far as he could. September 5th.
My previous appointment was for August 29th. When I mentioned this, I was told, "Oh, good! Well, keep that one, then."
Thanks, Harris. No, really. Thanks.
Harris, BTW, put money into Telehealth, a service staffed 24h a day with health care professionals who can give you sound medical advice. This is very useful when your baby has a fever and you don't know whether you should take them to Emerg and hang around for 4 hours waiting to be seen, only to be told it's due to teething.
He also cut health care and education spending. This has resulted in overflowing Emerg rooms, overworked staff, cutbacks in services, no beds for patients who need them, and an exodus of health care workers to the States, resulting in more understaffing and worse health services. Why an exodus? Because the understaffing is too stressful, and there's no money to give proper services, and health care worker's salaries have also been slashed, and, in the case of new doctors and nurses, the cutbacks in higher education have resulted in higher and higher debtloads upon exiting school. It's not easy to pay back >$150 in debts on the salaries currently being offered. And the States beckon with much higher salaries, lower taxes, better working conditions, and more respect for physicians.
Why am I going on about this?
Because my family doc put in an urgent request for me to see the gyne guy right away. And the gyne guy replied that he would be happy to bump me up the list as far as he could. September 5th.
My previous appointment was for August 29th. When I mentioned this, I was told, "Oh, good! Well, keep that one, then."
Thanks, Harris. No, really. Thanks.
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Date: 2003-08-01 09:38 am (UTC)But sheesh... it would be nice to see the gyne guy a lot sooner, to know what happened and to maybe try to fix it. So that I don't have to put up with another night like the other night.