QOTD

According to an October 10th Fox News story:

Mothers in British Columbia are having a baby boom, but it's the United States that has to deliver, and that has some proud Canadians blasting their highly touted government healthcare system.

"I'm a born-bred Canadian, as well as my daughter and son, and I'm ashamed," Jill Irvine told FOX News. Irvine's daughter, Carri Ash, is one of at least 40 mothers or their babies who've been airlifted from British Columbia to the U.S. this year because Canadian hospitals didn't have room for the preemies in their neonatal units.

"It's a big number and bigger than the previous capacity of the system to deal with it," said Adrian Dix, a British Columbia legislator, told FOXNews.com. . .

The mothers have been flown to hospitals in Seattle, Everett, Wash., and Spokane, Wash., to receive treatment, as well as hospitals in the neighboring province of Alberta, Dix said. Three mothers were airlifted in the first weekend of October alone, including Carri Ash. . .

Canada's socialized health care system, hailed as a model by Michael Moore in his documentary, "Sicko," is hurting, government officials admit, citing not enough money for more equipment and staff to handle high risk births. . .

Critics say these border crossings highlight the dangers of a government-run health care system.

"The Canadian healthcare system has used the United States as a safety net for years," said Michael Turner of the Cato Institute. "In fact, overall about one out of every seven Canadian physicians sends someone to the United States every year for treatment."

Neonatal intensive care units in Alberta and Ontario have also been stretched to capacity, she said.

So, who pays for such cross-border care? Canada’s taxpayers: “The cost of these airlifts and treatments, paid to U.S. hospitals by the province under Canada's universal health care system, runs upwards of $1,000 a child.” (emphasis added).

Except for ill-informed socialized insurance ideologues, such facts shouldn't surprise. Still it could be worse: Canada might have hijacked the moms to Cuba.

MORE:

From Friday's Ottawa Citizen:

When Dany Bureau's stomach started to hurt last week, he figured it was just because of something he ate.

So the 21-year-old Gatineau student went to bed, thinking he'd feel better by the morning. But when he woke up the next day, the pain was still there, and it was getting worse.

He headed to Gatineau Memorial Hospital, thinking that doctors would soon figure out what was ailing him and take care of it.

He never imagined the ordeal that would follow: The young man was turned away from five hospitals, got lost in an ambulance and, 28 hours after he was diagnosed, he had a burst appendix removed -- in Montreal. . .

As Dany was being loaded into the ambulance around 8:37 p.m. Friday, Robert Bureau hopped in his car and started on the two-hour journey to Montreal. "I anticipated that they would pass us on the way to the hospital, but we never saw the ambulance," he said.

When he got to the hospital, there was no sign of his son -- who didn't show up for another hour and a half because paramedics took a wrong turn on the highway.

"I could hear them asking directions to people outside because they didn't know where they were," Dany said.

Once the paramedics had found their way, they then mistakenly unloaded their patient at the Montreal Children's Hospital before they finally delivered him to the Montreal General Hospital 15 minutes after midnight.

(via Orange Punch, Right Wing News)