The System Too Big to Fail

Canadians pinned their national identity on an untenable system that will either kill them through neglect or poison:

As anyone who consumes Canadian news knows well, “introducing American-style health care” is one of this country’s greatest policy bogeymen: plenty of people are terrified of it, but it literally doesn’t exist. Any politician who bequeathed this country America’s fantastically expensive and complex system would be burned at the stake — in effigy, if they’re lucky. Still it’s deployed all the time to oppose any private-sector involvement, or any hint of a second or third “tier,” in the system.

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It becomes more and more ironic as more and more Canadian patients get sent to the United States for treatment. In May, British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix announced a plan to send 50 breast and prostate patients a week to two clinics in Bellingham, Wash., for radiation therapy.

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It hasn’t gone particularly well: An average of only 12 per week have been referred stateside, the Vancouver Sun reported this week, and B.C.’s wait times — already some of the longest in the nation — have actually increased.

While the press is bad for the B.C. government, the press is very good for American-style health care. “Night and day,” one breast cancer patient raved of her experience in Washington — “as good an experience as you can possibly ask,” she told the Sun, contrasting it (sympathetically) with how stressed and “overworked” the B.C. system and its workers are.

Other positive reviews have come from those who decided enough was enough and referred themselves south of the border, with their own money. And that has led to even more bad press for the government: 60-year-old Sheila Vicic claimed this week to have been “discharged” from B.C.’s cancer-care system, losing necessary post-chemotherapy supports such as a dietitian, for the crime of saving the British Columbia taxpayer a $10,000 procedure.

It’s not just B.C. that’s struggling to keep up, obviously. In Saturday’s National Post, health reporter Tom Blackwell describes the struggle to get an MRI for his wife Zena in Toronto within three months, the results of which were then misdiagnosed, and having to head to Niagara Falls, N.Y., for a quick and proper diagnosis and emergency surgery back home to remove a spinal tumor.

(To his credit, Blackwell also mentions using his connections to finagle a somewhat quicker MRI appointment in Toronto. The fallacy of “single-tier health care” in this country might be as big a barrier to reforms as the fallacy of “American-style health care.”)

Out-of-country referrals aren’t a brand-new phenomenon. Over the years several provinces have used the U.S. as a sort of pressure-relief valve for stem-cell treatment, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, and even late-term abortions.

But the scale of the B.C. program seems larger than anything else on record. And whether or not the government picks up the tab, more and more Canadians are heading to the U.S. for treatment. The Fraser Institute’s latest “Waiting Your Turn” report suggests 1.4 per cent of oncology patients sought treatment abroad in 2022 — and 1.9 per cent of Canadians seeking of orthopedic surgery or neurosurgery. All told it’s something like 70,000 Canadians a year. I don’t think I’ve ever head of anyone coming back disappointed about the quality of care.

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I’m not suggesting those positive experiences will add up to some kind of patient revolution in Canada, though that would be nice. But sending people stateside is at least a tacit recognition that governments, having assumed a monopoly on health care, have service-delivery obligations to their citizens. There’s no way sending our surplus patients to the U.S. is financially sustainable, and treating them ourselves likely isn’t either without some serious, no-sacred-cows reforms. The authors of those reforms will need to be able to stand up to the “American-style” bogeyman.

Another grim recent story out of B.C. offers a glimpse an an alternative future reality. On Nov. 24, terminally ill with cancer, in terrible pain, bedridden and unable to eat, 52-year-old Dan Quayle opted for medical assistance in dying (MAID). He passed away while on a waiting list for chemotherapy that doctors argued could have given him another year. “Our system is broken,” Quayle’s wife Karthleen Carmichael correctly argued.

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Canada’s average health care wait times have hit a record high of 27.7 weeks, according to a recently-released report by the Fraser Institute.

The 27.7-week figure is the longest wait time in the survey’s 30-year history and is 198 percent longer than the 1993 average of 9.3 weeks.

While the pandemic has played a role in increased patient wait times, it is not completely to blame, said one of the report’s authors.

“COVID-19 and related hospital closures have exacerbated, but are not the cause, of Canada’s historic wait times challenges,” Fraser Institute director of health policy studies Bacchus Barua said in a press release. “Previous results revealed that patients waited an estimated 20.9 weeks for medically necessary elective care in 2019—long before the pandemic started.”

The data, which was collected in a survey with responses from 1,200 Canadian doctors across 12 specialties and 10 provinces, singled Nova Scotia out as the province with the longest wait time: 56.7 weeks. Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick had similarly high wait times of 55.2 weeks and 52.6 weeks respectively.

Average wait times in Alberta, Newfoundland, and Saskatchewan came in at 33.5 weeks, 33.3 weeks, and 31 weeks while Manitoba averaged 29.1 weeks. British Columbia’s average wait time was 27.7 weeks and Quebec’s was 27.6 weeks. Ontario patients had the shortest wait time with an average of 21.6 weeks.

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Quebec has again set two dubious records in health care: highest number of people waiting for non-urgent surgery and highest number of patients in need of cancer operations, according to the latest government data.

As of Oct. 10, the most recent date for which data is available, nearly 164,000 Quebecers were on wait lists for elective surgery, up by about 2,000 since the start of the year and by more than 48,000 since January 2020. As for cancer surgery, the wait list has swelled to 4,401 from 4,160 since the beginning of the year.

“There are probably a lot of people dying on these wait lists,” said patient-rights advocate Paul Brunet, executive director of the Conseil pour la protection des malades. “These are record highs.”

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It was never about facts:

Health Canada says it conducted a “thorough” review before authorizing Pfizer-BioNTech’s latest COVID-19 shot targeting an Omicron variant, but information it tabled this week indicates it’s still waiting on the pharma giant to provide clinical data.

Health Canada provided the information on Dec. 11 in response to multiple vaccine-related questions filed in an order paper by NDP MP Don Davies.

Mr. Davies asked about Health Canada’s authorization of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty Omicron XBB.1.5 and Moderna’s Spikevax XBB.1.5 monovalent injections, and whether there is any clinical data demonstrating their efficacy and safety.

Health Canada answered that effectiveness data were provided for Moderna’s, but not for Pfizer’s.

“Pfizer-BioNTech is conducting a similar clinical trial with COMIRNATY Omicron XBB.1.5 vaccine, the results of this study will be submitted to Health Canada in response to Terms and Conditions issued as part of the approval of this vaccine,” says the health regulator.

“Immunogenicity and safety data will be provided as part of the terms and conditions of the authorization,” it added.

Health Canada says the benefit-risk profile of mRNA shots are “well understood” given they were given to hundreds of millions of people, and that safety and immunogenicity for primary series and booster doses have been “characterized” in several clinical trials.

“Considering the large body of evidence on the safety and efficacy of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the Real World Evidence that has accumulated over time, it is expected that the Omicron XBB.1.5 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines will elicit an immune response that will confer protection against COVID-19.”

Health Canada also said the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer’s XBB.1.5 shot is inferred from studies conducted on its previous mRNA products.

The regulator announced on Sept. 28 the approval of Pfizer-BioNTech’s XBB.1.5 product for individuals six months and older. The company had filed its submission for approval in June.

“After a thorough and independent review of the evidence, Health Canada has determined that the vaccine meets the Department's stringent safety, efficacy and quality requirements,” says Health Canada in a statement that doesn’t mention the lack of clinical data.

The Epoch Times reached out to Health Canada for comment on the matter and was referred to the department’s regulatory decision summary for the approval.

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The federal government is considering whether to pause its original plan to broaden the rules that govern medically assisted dying so they include patients whose only underlying condition is a mental disorder.

“We’re weighing our options,” Justice Minister Arif Virani said Wednesday.

 

Think of the money you can save!

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A Toronto woman has applied to be euthanized under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program after long COVID has sapped her energy and left her unable to enjoy life’s ordinary pleasures, she said.

 

My ability to enjoy life's pleasures has been sapped by those who get quadruple-vaxxed, vote for Jew-haters and otherwise waste my time but I still carry on. 

Before anyone drones on about callousness, she is collecting money off of people.

So there's that.