This is tragic, but we dont want the American health care system here, despite what the conservatives are trying to push
I was in the ER in the U.S. three times in 2022/2023. This is a town with two hospitals in a metro area of less than 100,000 people.
The shortest wait time, when I got there at 4 am and no one was around, was six hours. Which was when he gave up and went home in Canada.
My wife is an RN and I work in a hospital in a non-clinical logistical role that oversees throughput at multiple facilities. USA.
Right now for the past trending weeks with respiratory illnesses rising through the holidays given travel, family gatherings, shopping, etc. — our average length of stay has been 10+ hours. Unfortunately when we’re practically in a triage situation, it’s extremely difficult to see every single person in a timely manner — especially when vitals are stable.
All this recent talk has brought back up all the research I did around a decade ago on healthcare in America. The bottom-line is this:
- We spend upwards of 2x the amount of money per capita on healthcare than competing OECD nations.
- We achieve worse or at-best equal results (depending on your quality of insurance; most people believe their insurance is good when it isn’t).
- Somewhere around half of Americans forego seeking medical attention for fear of medical bills. Naturally this causes problems to snowball and, getting more complicated and costly to fix in the first place.
- The vast majority of bankruptcies in America is a result of medical debt; the majority of whom had health insurance at the onset of their illness.
At the end of the day, I’d still rather have Canada’s system than ours.
Oh yeah, I hear nursing shortages in the U.S. are crazy and I’m sure that was a big part of the long waits. I wouldn’t want to be a nurse in this age of entitled assholes. Especially not after the way they were treated during COVID. Just a thankless job. And that isn’t even about our capitalist system as much as just America being filled with people with an overinflated sense of entitlement.
But of course, capitalism just makes it all worse.
I was just talking about this with my wife again yesterday. I showed her the stats right now and the kind of patients the floors were receiving and she said, “no wonder people are burning out; it’s a miracle they get any nurses at all.” And yes it’s true, for the education rate, the benefits and pay are good… But you earn every single penny knee-deep in literal c-diff shit and violent grannies and people drugged out. We lost a lot of good nurses over the course of the pandemic and I can’t blame them. For all the yellow ribbons slapped on suburbans during the 2000s for soldiers, where were the ribbons for healthcare workers? Oh right, laypeople exemplifying Dunning-Kruger and embracing conspiracy theories on a topic they know nothing about while my wife was pushing body bags into the morgue. Anti-vaxx folks with plummeting O2 stats and they and their family suddenly begging for the vaccine now. Too late.
Literally all of our seasoned lead nurses on the ICU units turned over to find a specialty less on the front-line after those days. Again, I don’t blame them. They basically went to war and came back without any support like a Vietnam vet. Just in normal circumstances, the shit these medical workers see is really striking… And in some ways dare I say it might be worse than soldiering because at least with that, there’s some level of separation between normalcy and the battlefield. Whereas with nursing, it’s this constant shock of going to work for 12 hours and 100% adrenaline (especially things like a trauma ER, OR, or ICU) — then come back and jump right back into parenting. Then rinse, repeat. Naturally death isn’t exactly on the line for you; but you’re still responsible for the lives of others.
What drove my wife away from the floors was the constant recycling of the same patients and not seeing the problems get better. The root problems of these people reside elsewhere in society and hospitals end up being the catch-all for mental and physical illness kicked under the rug.
I’m an ICU nurse, and that first year of Covid felt like a warzone. I guarantee it traumatized almost all of us; we still talk about it amongst ourselves as if referring to the “dark times” or something. I would love to never experience that again if I could… it was terrifying and I was coming home to my wife who is immunocompromised.
Constant uncertainty and overwhelming levels of people dying in amounts that you’re not ready for. In the first few months, people that were intubated (put on a ventilator, which we did quickly in the beginning) were effectively made a DNR. If they coded, we didn’t even try to resuscitate them because we didn’t have the protocols in place for performing advanced cpr, without infecting everyone
And it didn’t seem to care about their age. A healthy 30 year old dies; A 55 year old, grossly overweight patient with multiple comorbidities, walks out after a week. A marathon runner now needs a heart transplant. A 80 year old just has the sniffles… and then a massive stroke. It was unpredictable and awful to watch
My wife and I both had covid for the first time just earlier this year… we managed to avoid it this long at least, when it’s now not nearly as lethal (we were diligent and very lucky). So there’s that. But yeah, that stuff definitely fucked some nurses up. But we’re “healthcare heroes!” and sometimes get free pizza, so it’s all good, we continue forth regardless.
I’m just ranting now, and rarely talk about it anymore. But I feel like it’s good for people to still get an inside snippet sometimes. It’s almost impossible to put into words, as is. Shit was wild
Thank you for sharing. I know it’s tough to talk about. Even my wife whom I can at least tangentially relate to on medical grounds tends to bury the stuff when she comes home. Every single medical worker should have easy, free access to good therapy in my opinion. I have the utmost respect for front-line medical workers such as yourself.
Reading Carl Sagan’s somewhat dated albeit very relevant, “Demon Haunted World” right now, and all his fears have become fully realized. A complete disregard for science and this fringe pseudoscience and conspiracy-theory laden world. I don’t know how to stop what’s been set in motion.
We, with kids and what have you, caught COVID a couple of times unfortunately. If I recall we caught Delta and Omicron variants. The worst part about it was how much it just dragged on and on. I’ve never had that much fatigue. I had an infected kidney stone, early sepsis, pna, and pleural effusion at the same time and even all that wasn’t as draining and achy as covid pre-vaccine for 2 weeks…
Yeah, the need for nurses is growing daily, fewer people are choosing the career and more are leaving because nursing earlier because of the stress and abuse. But another major reason for long waits is that a lot of the people in the ER are there utilizing it as a primary care provider because they don’t have insurance to be able to get day to day care or they don’t go to an urgent care office. So many people are in the ER for antibiotics, cuts, scrapes, minor burns and breaks that really don’t need to be seen in the ER, adding to the long waits for people who do need to be there.
They’re pretty good at assessing quickly who is a legitimate cause for concern and who isn’t.
For instance, if you have chest pain, dizziness and confusion, etc. you’re going to be seen faster. If you’ve got a minor laceration or a broken bone or flank pain with all signs of a kidney stone — despite the pain — sorry, you’ll be waiting… Probably because a motor-vehicle crash with brain hemorrhaging in the back just arrived and you don’t know about it and the trauma team was called and literally every major doctor and nurse is in there coding the patient.
People in the waiting-room don’t see what’s coming in as a code from the helipad or ambulance door.
More often than not, if you’re waiting a long time then it probably means it’s not too serious relative to what else is currently there. Which is kind of a good thing for you. Of course, you have anomalies like this one… But honestly, this guy got impatient and should’ve waited longer if he was concerned. He wrote,
Had a bit of a health scare last night, but thankfully it wasn’t a heart attack. Not sure what it was, though, because once they made sure I wasn’t dying I was thrown out into the waiting room and 6 hours later I said f*ck it and went home.
Honestly, that’s on him. He left against medical advice and if he stayed he would’ve received diagnostic imaging eventually and if his vitals deteriorated, they would’ve called a code on him immediately.
One thing we can say is that this generation of boomers is just extremely unhealthy. We’re seeing an increasing number of old people who really don’t know how or care to care for themselves. This is where a huge part of the burden resides. It doesn’t help that medical misinformation is at an all-time high.
NO! IT’S COMMUNIST!! (/s obviously)
Im in the EU and the longest I’ve ever had to wait in an ER was four hours. That was because they were doing lab work on my blood though. They took the blood maybe ten mins after I arrived. I think the longest I’ve ever had to wait until seeing a doctor was maybe an hour.
You’d probably have to be gushing blood out of every orifice to have less than a four hour wait in an American ER at this point.
And if you need pain relief, good luck.
That is horrific, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to brag, just a perspective to contrast the ‘socialized healthcare bad’ narrative you often get. Fingers crossed that with the new scrutiny your healthcare is under these days, things will improve a little for you!
Oh no, I didn’t think you were bragging. I was just giving everyone else perspective. I am glad Europeans have that available to them!
Thank you :) To add: the worst part of our healthcare system is that there’s a private branch too. I think municipalities try to make sure that there’s always insurance covered doctors available, but with certain specialties, there just aren’t enough around. It’s just more profitable for the doctors to be private. For example, I’ve given up on finding a gyno that’s insurance-covered. I just pay the 150€ for a full check-up once a year. I’m glad the price is manageable at least!
the worst part of our healthcare system is that there’s a private branch too
That’s what we call “a slippery slope greased with filthy lucre to the bottom of a chasm where America is.”
Or chest pain. They’ll take you straight back if you might be having a heart attack.
I’m Canadian in a city of around 1.5m and recently spent nearly ten hours in the ER for possible appendicitis (it wasn’t luckily). I spent around 15 minutes of that actually talking to anybody.
The Conservative premier of Ontario and other Conservative premiers are desperately trying to underfund our healthcare to the point where we ask for a US style system. “Starve the beast”. It feels like it’s working though because at this point I don’t even really feel like we have any healthcare.
Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking the US has much faster ERs or appointments.
I drove someone to the ER last year with a massively swollen neck and was burning up. We didn’t see a doctor for at least four hours.
We finally saw someone and they were like oh dear let’s see if there’s a room available.
They found a room and did the MRI but the specific surgeon who could do the operation wasn’t available. They wanted to send my buddy on a goddamn ambulance to a hospital two hours away. He was so upset because all he could think about was how much the MRI was and how much the ambulance was going to cost. I tried to get him to let me drive him there but he just wouldn’t let me.
Every single business is purposely running a goddamn skeleton crew from a Walgreens to a hospital
I fucking hate the “Average ER Wait Time” signs outside of hospitals. Most of the time, this measures time you wait between entering the door and your information being entered into the system. It rarely means the amount of time of wait between when you are triaged to when you are seen by a healthcare professional, which can be hours.
That’s a thing? I fucking hate that those even exist!
If you guys need ideas on how to solve the conservatives pushing it, we did find out a way to scare them recently.
Conservatives have been using the tried and true formula of cutting things until they’re barely working and then claiming private enterprise will fix it. Guaranteed it will be worse, we have an example right next door.
my mother died of one, too, while waiting for an endovascular embolization. on medicare, in the u.s. had she been a cash-paying ‘customer’ (i.e. ‘rich’), she might still be alive today.
Your Canadian government has been fucking over the universal Healthcare system there in Canada for quite sometime. Purposefully underfunded it and stretching it thin in order to actually make its citizens WANT privatization of Healthcare.
Y’all are letting them slowly fuck you.
Just to clarify for you, it’s been the conservative provincial governments that have been shredding Healthcare in this country, federal doesn’t do much beyond attempting to allocate funds as requested/required to the province, the province is then responsible for spending it and asking for more if needed.
Lol no one here is in favour of private healthcare. Well over 80% support with what we have going.
That’s still just 4 out of 5. If you were dentists recommending a toothpaste, I’d barely except your recommendation.
True true
You’d be waiting just as long… and you’d be charged for every single second.
after doctors made sure he wasn’t in a life-threatening condition, he was moved to the waiting room, where he sat for six hours before deciding to pack up and go home.
I don’t know why they’re trying to spin it as a difference from the US system.
I had the same exact experience in the US. multiple times. You go to the ER, for whatever reason, they look at you and, unless you’re literally bleeding to death you’re gonna be told to wait many many hours.
So, I guess Canada is the same on this, but at least they won’t send you a huge bill to pay.
That last bit makes all the difference though. Canada has issues that need resolving, the US is just fucked
Don’t fret. Our conservatives will soon make sure we’re also fucked.
I always prepare for a 6 hour wait. I bring veggies to snack on and water, a book, and maybe a steamdeck. I might be uncomfortable sitting for hours, but I’m not going to be bored if I’m not considered priority.
Usually they get to people who need them pretty quick.
Exactly. It’s called triage. It’s not first come, first served. If someone is bleeding out, they get treated before you. Your turn will come as soon as there are resources available to take care of you with no one dying. And if the people holding the purse strings are reducing staffing levels, then your wait time is going to a lot longer than it would be if they weren’t trying to cut corners.
The only reason this is news is because when it happens in America it’s too common to be considered novel
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Well they just need to condense it then. TL;DR novels.
I always love when they knock the wait times in Canada because in the US the alternative for most would be avoiding going to the hospital at all costs until it’s too late anyway.
OECD publishes data on wait times. America is far from the top anyway
I swear to god if the US or Canadian media start using the current state of our healthcare system to advocate for an American system I’m going to lose it. This is exactly what the right wants. They’ve been underfunding the system to the point where it might as well not even exist and now they’re turning around and saying, “look, it doesn’t work”. It’s “starve the beast” to the letter and apparently it’s working.
They take something that works (albeit not always perfectly) for everyone and defund it, pass legislative stumbling blocks, create chaos, wait, then say, “it’s broken and only we can fix it!”. How do they fix it? By selling it piecemeal to corporate vampires.
Watch as the USPS, one of the last remaining US government corporations, is dismantled.
Admire how the NHS in the UK has been torn apart.
Get your bankruptcy forms ready, folk. American style “health care” is coming to Canada.
Which character will you play in the Mario Party?
Admire how the NHS in the UK has been torn apart.
This is going on in Finland as well. Way increased privatisation and defunding public systems.
Fucking right wing.
Fucking billionaires and profiteers.
Ngl I’m too mentally exhausted to reply to anything else you said but I am a big fan of Luigi personally so maybe him?
American men die of aneurism because they couldn’t afford treatment to begin with!
Only 35,999 more to go to catch up to the US this year.
Cool how medical errors that kill people never happen in the wonderful U.S. medical system.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/
It almost sounds American, he probably never would’ve gone in the first place because he couldn’t afford it or insurance would’ve denied his scans though.
And that is such an average story that news media wouldn’t care about how average it is.
As someone who has been to hospital multiple times in canada as a canadian, if you know you don’t feel well, stay at the hospital don’t just pack up and leave. I know six hours is super long, but them not doing blood work or xrays is a little sus. whenever i went in for chest pain at bare minimum i got 2 ECGs, blood work, and chest xray. It doesn’t list what type of Aneurysm he had, but i reckon it was not in the brain. We do have a problem where waiting rooms are stuffed full of people and hospitals are overwhelmed, but if it was night time, usually that crowd has moved on, i wished he stayed longer and asked for blood work and a xray.
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