At this point in my life, I walk with a cane, my memory is intermittent at best, and I’m subject to weekly blood tests among a constant stream of other sorts of medical checkups. The cause? A stroke suffered at the hands of the socialized healthcare in Canadian hospitals.
Had a doctor had time to take my case seriously; or, had I been able to get basic diagnostic testing done in a timely manner; or, had the triage nurse not been on lunch break when I needed her; or, had I been prescribed the simple medication that would have prevented by body from forming blood clots; or, had I been informed of risks and told of things I could do to change what lay ahead, this may never have happened. One things for sure, public healthcare failed me at every turn…and I almost died because of it.
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Exactly one year ago, on August 8th, 2009, I was admitted into Ottawa General Hospital with an ischemic stroke, caused by a cardioembolism (blood clot) in my left anterior cerebral artery. The tiny little clot that changed my life was a by-product of a heart condition called atrial fibrillation (A-Fib, for short) that I had been diagnosed with about a month prior.
To this date, doctors are still dumbfounded about how someone in their 20′s who rarely drinks and has never done drugs acquired A-Fib in the first place, but I accept that flukes happen. I was having a quiet evening with a friend when I felt my heart racing, accompanied by serious chest pains and difficulty breathing. After several hours of attempting to convince myself that nothing was wrong, I called a public health service called Telehealth Ontario (possibly one of the most useless government services in existence) to see if I had a cause for concern. The official recommendation from Telehealth was go to the hospital by ambulance.
Upon arriving to the hospital, I was brought right into the emergency room and received in my care a level of quality that I have no complaints about. After several attempts to bring my heart back to ‘sinus’ rhythm, my doctors succeeded and I was discharged with follow-up. This was where the problems started. I was given an ‘urgent’ referral to a place called the Acute Cardiac Referral Clinic at the affiliated University of Ottawa Heart Institute.
No one was able to give me an accurate estimate on how long I’d be waiting. That being said, I wasn’t too worried, because I accepted the explanation of the doctor that, “this was probably just a one-off. You’re young, you’ll be fine.” I was going to be fine, no need to worry! For my own sake, I didn’t do much Googling of the affliction that I had been diagnosed with because I knew that I’d likely find some bizarre case of someone dying from it in some African village 50 years ago. The last thing I wanted was to be one of those patients who starts off a medical consultation with “I read on the internet somewhere that…” or anything similar.
I was a little disturbed that a heart issue with no identifiable randomly appeared, but I wasn’t worried. However, only four days later, I noticed the same symptoms as I was on my way to work. By the time I got to my office on Parliament Hill, I sunk into a couch, clutched my chest and called security to bring down an oxygen tank. I ended up having an ambulance bring me to the hospital yet again, less than a week after my most recent visit.
Once again, I received reasonable care according to my imminent needs, but was given little confidence that I’d be looked after in the long-term. Over a five-week period, I ended up in the emergency room four times with the same symptoms, each time being told that it was either a ‘fluke’ or ‘coincidence.’ One doctor’s brilliant advice was that it was ‘weird.’ Despite this issue only getting worse, my urgent referral to the Acute Cardiac Referral Clinic wasn’t available any quicker. I was able to get in during the first week of August. I wasn’t permitted to see a cardiologist, merely a technician who wasn’t permitted to tell me anything until a cardiologist had a chance to look at the tests “whenever he gets to it.”
Amusingly, on the last of these four visits, the doctor said to me, “If you were older we’d be worried about you having a stroke. But that’s not going to happen.” Less than a week later, I proved him wrong.
This part is truly a comedy of errors. Feeling my heart condition start acting up, I decided that I would go to the hospital just to make sure. It was the sunny afternoon of Saturday August 8th. Upon arrival to the Ottawa General Hospital (I should have been requesting frequent flier miles,) I proceeded to the emergency room and went to the reception desk. The rather miserable looking woman asked, “Are you here to see a doctor or a patient?” I was feeling a little dizzy at this point, and I didn’t notice that I had been dragging my right leg. I told her that I wanted to see a doctor, and she informed me that I needed to see a triage nurse first. The catch? The triage nurse was on lunch and wouldn’t be back for another 45-50 minutes. The clot had already made its way to my brain by this time. Every passing minute was leading to less and less strength on my right side. Unfortunately, my brain was too messed up to know that anything was happening.
The triage nurse arrived shortly before 2:00pm and motioned me in. By this point, I was barely able to use my right arm and was dragging my right leg from the waiting area to her chair. Every other time I had been sitting there, they had done routine questions that would rule out whether or not I was having a stroke. She didn’t ask those this time, I must have been fine then! I was then downgraded from emergent to the hospital’s clinic, inappropriately called the Urgent Care unit. When I got there and an electrocardiogram (ECG) was done, I was quickly brought into the emergency room, and from there I was quickly brought into the emergency room and treated for a stroke. To put things into perspective, with ischemic strokes there is a 4.5-hour window in which a miracle drug can be administered to break up the clot. I received this with 13 minutes to spare.
One mistake at one hospital is unfortunate. Two mistakes at two hospitals is a little fishy. However, a series of screw-ups and neglect that leads to a preventable tragedy raises enough cause to question the efficiency of the system itself. I’m not the only one who’s experienced this. This saga through the public healthcare system changed my life forever. I thank God it didn’t take my life away altogether.
I’m so sorry to hear the details. My son died cuz of health care cut backs so I understand. My only point would be imagine havin to go through all that and then recieving a ?$ bill! Yes we need better triage. I have a whole list of words I …made from the letters in triage from one emerg visit. Lol. There is No reason why the nurse shouldn’t have had a relief nurse! ! And failure to ask the standard ?s is a most serious offence. I’ve been in the Hospitals here enough times to appreciate how hard nurses work,doctors too but I also see All the problems! Adding moronic costs to the system by allowing in-vitro boggles the mind! Ah I think I’m done. Lol. L8r T8r!
did you vote for obama? be honest
I’m so glad you pulled through this, Andrew! That is definitely a “comedy” of errors for sure. I’ve had similar experiences at a particular hospital (Harrison aka Horrorson) down here in the States… =( I’ve decided that the majority of doctors don’t really care if you live or die… They just want you out of their clinic/hospital asap so that they can move onto the next paying patient. It’s all about the almighty dollar. Although, I will say that I had a good experience when I was there 2 weeks ago w/ this *lovely* case of measles that I have.
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Coming to an American state near you my US friends. And more and more money will go to produce a less healthy population. It has already become Canada’s political third rail. My own story is the long delay in getting a hip replacement. It took almost 3 years and subjected me to pain that event perks or vicoden could barely touch. In my mind it was nothing less than government induced torture. Had I been covered by private medical insurance I could have had my surgery within a month, let alone 3 years. I have noticed that the wait times for the political class are significantly shorter. Funny eh?
Thanks for sharing that story. I have been going through the “waiting for a specialist appointment” for many years now and at this point they do not know what is the matter. Some of my appointments have been almost a year to wait. Then it i…sn’t what they thought it was so they try something else but then it is another 3 months to a year wait.
It seems with you, your youth did not help you but rather made things worse.
I am comforted to realize that ultimately it is the Great Physician whose hands we are in.
maybe if you weren’t such a fat ass you wouldnt need to worry about it. seriously, your a racist pig who needs to stop blaming everything on the government. suck it up, cut down on the cheesburgers and move on you idiot.
I wish more people knew your story and the hundreds like it Andrew. It may make them think twice before jamming this sort of Marxist statism down everyone’s throats.
ill be praying for you andrew. we need freedom fighters like you.
Sweetie, I still pray for you every day, if only because you ditched our date by doing all that near-death stuff. Shame on you for making me worry! I hope that every day you can see a little more improvement back to the man you were (just not with the Blackberry, they’re evil, try an iphone, there’s more games).
If you ever deign to come out and visit the prairies, I’ll still expect that date!
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One of the big problems with single payer “health care” is that every action in such a system is an expense. Every single one. Some are bigger, some are less, but they are still expenses. Ultimately, these expenses must be controlled and limited. In a single payer system, this means rationing at every level–rationing of service, time, quality, resources, availability, …. The degree of rationing is out of your hands and in those who run/operate the system. It is the inescapable and inevitable conclusion of such a system.
Dizzy enough to not mention to the rather miserable looking receptionist that you were experiencing the effects of a previously diagnosed heart condition?
Which was the reason you were there, after all.
Sorry, but I find it hard to place all the blame on the health care system. Circumstantial evidence is that it appears you took very few steps to investigate your own illness, and visually your body mass index appears higher than recommended.
As you might have died from being both uninformed and uncommunicative, you might just want to be happy to be alive, rather than looking to blame someone for your problems.
To all the nay sayers and idiot commentors in love with the Socialized Canadian Health Care Shitstem; May you die a slow, agonizing and silent death on a gurney, in a hallway of one of our Hospitals while the unionized nurses & staff giggle and point at you all the while.
I am glad you pulled through. Public health care in Cuba is worse. My grandfather died in his late 50s, relatively young in comparison to life expectancy rates, because of lack of vitamins and credible health care in Havana after he had his stroke. People in America need to be aware of these horror stories of government take overs of any private business. Let alone health care. Now the government will regulate our care. That is scary.
Thanks for the positive comments everyone. Cubachi, I sure hope that Canada hasn’t lowered itself to Cuba’s level in terms of quality of government services! Though, according to Michael Moore, Americans would be lucky to be able to get operated on in Havana…
Mitchel, I understand what you’re saying. However, don’t you think it’s a little odd that (a) there was only one triage nurse on duty; and, (b) that she wasn’t even there? When one’s brain isn’t working, it’s hard to report symptoms. Even when I did see her, that still didn’t help matters. I’ll be the first to admit when I’ve made a mistake…but I think the system screwed up far more than I did.
Thanks for publishing this. My wife and I are Canadian, but we lived in US while I did graduate work. During that time we had two children in US hospitals. The health insurance was affordable (even for a student who supported his stay-at-home-wife and 3 children) and the healtcare was exceptionally good. It was always service with a smile, and the hospitals were like 5-star resorts. Upon our return to Canada, we visited a hospital when my wife had a miscarriage. The workers complained openely about their jobs and they treated my wife like an inconvenience to their busy schedules. Needless to say, this contrast has proven to us both that we were at one time brainwashed into thinking our socialized system is superior the Americans. We know now this is not so. Socialized healthcare is inhumane and dangerous.
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Here in Ontario I have seen six different eye specialists over seven years. I have been impeccably polite with each doctor. Each one refused to consider the information I brought in regarding a likely diagnosis ( published, peer-reviewed Harvard research papers). Two threw the paper in the garbage without looking at it. Another told me to “cut the conversation”. Each doctor tried to repeat the same tests as the previous doctor, then passed me on to another. The last eye specialist, at Sunnybrook, finally admitted that the Harvard diagnosis and treatment is not on the accepted protocol that eye specialists in Ontario must follow, therefore he could not admit the existence of the diagnosis, nor perform the simple treatment. I will have to travel to the U.S. to have my eyes properly treated by doctors who are allowed to think without government interference.
Mitchell: perhaps our young man should have done more research, but SO SHOULD YOU. Ask anyone who’s had a stroke: it’s as if someone took a corner of the brain and shook it like a blanket. Or scrambled it. And that’s with relatively minor strokes.
If the hospital had only one triage nurse on, then they are responsible for not having adequate personnel available. You need two such nurses per shift, not just because of patient load, but because the nurses do need breaks – if only to go outside and get some oxygen – in order to continue to function.
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Look at the bright side. If this had happened in Quebec you wouldn’t be writting this column.
I bet you wish george bush was still president now
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chilling…the future of healthcare in the us.
Thanks for sharing Andrew. It may be too little too late, but I work with the Mayo clinic, and things can be arranged if you are waiting for any particular procedures…
Stay strong Andrew. the Lord protects us and you are in His hands.
What a message young Canadians are raised with that the government will always be there to coddle them. We need more stories like yours.
Yikes, that is terrible. D: To suffer that condition when you’re that young. And personally, I think that the doctors are the ones who did not take this condition seriously, especially….and since America now has public health care system, I’m a little worried on what could potentially happen later.
Your an inspiration sir…
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Thank G-d you have a second chance at life… and you must appreciate life so much more now. Andrew, may you live to a ripe old age… healthy and wealthy! G-d bless you!
I’d be the first to say there needs to be improvements to healthcare in Canada but blaming public funding is simplistic. The US government spends more per capita on healthcare than Canada does. Only third world countries come close to not funding healthcare and I doubt you would find better treatment there. But it would be a lot cheaper.
I’m sorry you’re having health problems. I’ve had a few of my own. I hope your condition improves.
At this point in my life, I walk with a cane, my memory is intermittent at best, and I