150+ Critically ill Canadian patients rushed to U.S.

Well, at least Canadians will oppose the US adopting an even larger role for government in our health care system:

More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here.

Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care.

The waits, in some instances, have had devastating consequences.

“There have been very serious health-care problems that have arisen in neurosurgical patients because of the lack of ability to attain timely transport to expert neurosurgical centres in Ontario,” said R. Loch Macdonald, chief of the division of neurosurgery at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Those problems, he said, include “brain injury or brain damage that could have been prevented by earlier treatment.”

Ontario has the worst problem, though it is not alone.

Czechs upset at having to pay less than $2 for a doctor's visit

The Czech healthcare system undergoes a minor revolution on 1 January as patients are asked to pay a small fee each time they visit their doctor.

The move is part of a widespread reform of the health sector unveiled by the centre-right government.

It is far from popular - a number of leading figures are calling on Czechs not to pay up.

Czechs enjoyed free healthcare during four decades of communist rule and in the past 17 years of capitalism.

But from 1 January, Czech patients will be asked to pay 30 crowns (£0.83; 1.1 euros) for each visit to the doctor, and 60 crowns for each day spent in hospital. . . . .

If $1.50 dissuades someone from going to the doctor, you have to wonder how badly they had to go to the doctor. It is pretty obvious that they shouldn't be wasting the doctor's time if they don't value the service at $1.50 or so. Clearly, this $1.50 is much too low.

Britain travel abroad to avoid long waiting lists and hygiene concerns

You know that people are pretty desparate when then are willing to travel half way around the world to avoid conditions with British healthcare.

LONDON: India has emerged the most popular destination for British patients wanting to undergo surgery for ailments that would otherwise take months to treat in the National Health Service (NHS).

In the first major survey of medical tourism, figures show that British citizens have travelled to 112 hospitals in 48 countries for safe, quick and affordable treatment. NHS hospitals in Britain face long waiting lists and hygiene challenged by superbugs. . . . .

British Government Health Insurance System Makes Major Innovations in Dental Care: Dental Patients Pull Out Own Teeth

Who ever said that government systems stifle innovation:

Almost a fifth (19%) of those questioned said they had missed out on dental work because of the cost.

The research found 6% had even resorted to treating themselves because they could not find a dentist.

The 5,000-plus patients who were interviewed also spoke of taking out their own teeth or fixing broken crowns with glue.

One person in Lancashire said he had carried out 14 separate extractions. . . . .

Children, Doctors, and Guns

I got this email this afternoon:

I agree with the premise of your Op-Ed piece, with one caveat. My children's Pediatrician asked a similar question once when my son in to see her, but it was phrased a different (and I felt appropriate) way. She asked "If you were over at a friend or relative's house and was playing hide and seek and found a gun, what would you do?" I took that to be as innocent as asking if they knew what to do in the event of a fire. My son, who was 9 at the time, answered perfectly by telling her that he wouldn't touch it, he believes it's real, and goes and gets an adult. I didn't have a problem with the question posed in that manner. We have worked with both of our children with gun safety. Ours are locked away (quick handgun access for protection if needed; long guns and other firearms in gun safe). I am not a Texas CHL holder, but will be soon. My children are familiar with firearms and have been shown their destructive power, been to the range, etc., but I can't speak for other kids that may be in my house if I’m not immediately available. My kids need to have a good understanding because I can't control other's access in their homes. It's my responsibility to them.

Here is my response:

My only concern is that even by asking the question there is the implication that these deaths are at all common. In 2004 for children under 10, the age that would encompass your son, there were 28 accidental gun deaths (something that would have been the outcome of the hypothetical example that the doctor gave). If the doctor had gone through similar hypothetical questions for everything else that had 28 or fewer accidental deaths associated it, the doctor would have spent hours on the topic. Why just guns?

New Op-ed: "Guns Don't Kill Kids, Irresponsible Adults With Guns Do"

Should your doctor ask your child if you own a gun?

Guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatric say "yes."

They warn that “Children are curious even if they’ve had some sort of firearm training. That’s why parents taking responsibility for safe gun storage is so essential.”

Doctors across the United States are being advised to interrogate children about mom and dad’s "bad" behavior.

It sounds simple enough, but the problem is that the advice ignores the benefits and exaggerates the costs of gun ownership. . . .

Here is some discussion on this piece.

Oh No, Health Food Restaurants are Dangerous to your Health!

Most people ingest more calories when dining at so-called healthy restaurants, according to new research from Cornell University.

Researchers say healthy restaurants often prompt consumers to treat themselves to higher-calorie side dishes, drinks or desserts than they would normally eat at fast-food and other restaurants that do not claim to be healthy . . . .

Racially motivated stress as an explanation for infant mortality rates?

OK, you have differences in "poor nutrition, inadequate prenatal care, teen pregnancy, heredity, high blood pressure, stress, obesity, low birth weights and prematurity," but some academics have a different theory:

"The pregnancy scares the life out of me because I am pregnant with a baby boy, and I know how black boys are treated in this society," one study participant told researchers from Spelman College and Emory University in Atlanta. . . .

Here is my question: how has the gap between black and white infant mortality rates changed over time? The 1950s and 1960s should have had really high relative infant mortality rages, but they weren't. Well, I looked up some numbers:

The infant mortality rate for Black Americans in 1999 was 2.5 times the rate of White Americans. In 1950 the mortality rate of black infants was only 1.5 times the rate of white infants. . . .

Sometimes Government Insurance Doesn't Really Mean Coverage

Two patients in Canada who couldn't wait for the government insurance program to provide them health care coverage.

Patients suing province over wait times
Man, woman who couldn't get quick treatment travelled to U.S. to get brain tumours removed
Sep 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Tanya Talaga
Health Reporter

. . . Holmes began losing her vision in March 2005, she told a press conference at Queen's Park yesterday. An MRI in May 2005 revealed a tumour in her brain. Her family doctor couldn't expedite appointments booked with specialists for July 19 and Sept. 19, 2005. As the tumour pressed on her optic nerves, her vision deteriorated. Afraid to wait any longer, she went to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Within a week she met three specialists and was told she had a fluid-filled sac growing near her pituitary gland at the base of her brain. They urged her to have it taken out immediately. She went home with the hopes of quickly removing what is known as a Rathke's cleft cyst.

Unable to get surgery fast, she returned to Arizona and had the mass removed on Aug. 1, 2005. Her vision was restored in 10 days. The Holmes family is now in debt $95,000 because of medical costs.

"My husband has taken a second full-time job. We've re-mortgaged our home. It has to be known. People can't go through this," said Holmes, a family mediator. "I was very fortunate to save my eyesight but the cost and the battle has been devastating . . . .

South African Health Minister Pushes new Cure for HIV AIDS

Dr Tshabalala-Msimang has - in the past - come under fire over her unorthodox approach to the HIV-Aids crisis.

Her emphasis on the use of garlic and beetroot for HIV sufferers brought her many critics. . . .

Senator John Edwards asks if Cuba has a government health care system?

Is this really serious? It just shows the old saying that telling one lie can lead to many other ones.

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: When an Iowa resident asked former senator John Edwards Thursday whether the United States should follow the Cuban healthcare model, the 2004 vice presidential contender deflected the question by saying he didn't know enough to answer the question.

"I'm going to be honest with you -- I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system," Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. "Is it a government-run system?"

But just three days earlier, the candidate was asked a question about the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko" -- which focuses extensively on the Cuban healthcare system.

As Willie Nelson's classic "On the Road Again" blared, Edwards leaned out of a window of his campaign bus dubbed "Fighting for One America", to hear an off-camera voice howl, "I wanted to ask ya, is it required that everyone go see "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko"?

Edwards, in between autographs outside Dan's Pizzeria in Onawa, Iowa, replies, "I watched Sicko," later adding, "It's a great movie."

You can watch the moment captured by C-SPAN and spread to the world on YouTube by clicking here. . . . .

A cure for headaches -- at least it works for some people

John Tierney has the answer here in the middle of this quote:

thanks to psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin, we can at last count the whys. After asking nearly 2,000 people why they’d had sex, the researchers have assembled and categorized a total of 237 reasons — everything from “I wanted to feel closer to God” to “I was drunk.” They even found a few people who claimed to have been motivated by the desire to have a child. . . .

Who knew, for instance, that a headache had any erotic significance except as an excuse for saying no? But some respondents of both sexes explained that they’d had sex “to get rid of a headache.” It’s No. 173 on the list.

Others said they did it to “help me fall asleep,” “make my partner feel powerful,” “burn calories,” “return a favor,” “keep warm,” “hurt an enemy” or “change the topic of conversation.” The lamest may have been, “It seemed like good exercise,” although there is also this: “Someone dared me.” . . . . .

England: How Socialized Medicine Saves Money

A 108-year-old woman has been told she must wait at least 18 months before she receives a new hearing aid.
Olive Beal, who has failing eyesight and uses a wheelchair, finds it difficult to hear with her five-year-old analogue aid and needs a digital version that cuts out background noise and makes conversation easier.

Mrs Beal, a former piano teacher who was involved in the suffragette movement, would be 110 by the time she gets her new hearing aid. "I could be dead by then," she said yesterday. . . . . .

Bogus study claims medical costs are related to bankruptcy

I had heard about this claim, but I had no idea how bad the research was. This claim has been used to push for socialized medicine.

The study's central findings were that 54½ percent of all bankruptcies have a "medical cause" and 46.2 percent of all bankruptcies have a "major medical cause." . . . . the study classifies uncontrolled gambling, drug or alcohol addiction, and the birth or adoption of a child as "a medical cause." . . . . A father who has gambled away his family's mortgage payment is not the victim of crushing medical bills. Similarly, new parents who find they can no longer afford their previous lifestyle now that one of them has to stay home with the baby will usually find the obstetrician's bill the least of their problems. Babies are a financial hardship even when hospitals give them away free. . . . The authors also classified bankruptcies as having a "major medical cause" if the debtors had more than $1,000 in accumulated, out-of-pocket medical expenses (uncovered by insurance) over the course of the two years prior to the bankruptcy, even if the debtors did not cite illness or injury as among the reasons for their bankruptcy.

Who gets to decide if you get treatment under national health care

iPods for addicts while others go without treatment. That said, it is an interesting test to see if incentives work.

DRUG addicts are to be offered gift vouchers and prizes on the National Health Service under plans by the government’s medicine watchdog to encourage them to stay clean.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will recommend the system of inducements, which could enable clinics to offer televisions and iPods as prizes, to tackle the burgeoning drugs problem. But patients denied drugs for blindness, Alzheimer’s and lung cancer under Nice rationing are likely to accuse it of wasting public money.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: “Why should these people with self-inflicted problems be given priority over people who have a genuine illness? Some people with genuine disease are being forced to sell their homes for the medicines they need.” . . . .

More rationing of health care in socialized medicine

socialist medical care as Nirvana.

Conversation at lunch revealed that the neighbor, who had a history of heart trouble, suffered severe chest pains a few weeks ago. He wisely went to the hospital seeking treatment. He was told that there was no space available for him. He was advised to go home and call back later to see if a room might have become available. He did so, but was told repeatedly that the hospital remained full to capacity. Several days later this man died at home, never having received hospital treatment . . . .

Apparently Hospital Food in Britain is Much Worse than in Canada

For something amusing see here

Rationing in British Health Care

John Palmer has an interesting discussion of the British Health Care system here. This example surely fits in the save a penny lose a pound school of running medical care. Is it more costly for the patient and the medical system to have taken care of both kidney stones at the same time or to make the patient come in a second time. I particularly like the part of the doctor ripping off the electrodes off John.

Something for those not yet wary of following the latest medical research

My love affair with vitamins and supplements is over: With a few exceptions -- stay tuned -- I'm tossing them out.

Things started going south for this romance 13 years ago when a Finnish study of 29,000 male smokers showed a higher rate of lung cancer in men who took beta-carotene and vitamin E and, more shockingly, found that those who took beta-carotene had an 8 percent higher risk of death from all causes. Two years later, an American study reported similar findings for beta-carotene. I've never been a smoker, but a red flag is a red flag. Out went the beta-carotene. . . . .

New Op-ed FoxNews.com: Moore's Myths Sicko

Only 2 percent of Americans are both uninsured and "very dissatisfied" with "the quality of the health care that [they] receive." Another 2 percent were both uninsured and "somewhat dissatisfied." . . .

Walter Reed Veteran Medical Care and Public Provision

When will people make the connection between the problems at Walter Reed for veterans and the lack of incentives that exist in public provision? This isn't a deep point, but I am not seeing it mentioned in the media. The question is whether any of those pushing for a single payer health care system will see the connection.